|
|
|
You can get e-magazine links on WhatsApp. Click here
|
|
|
|
|
|
Complex regulations among key challenges in implementation of standards
|
|
Friday, 31 May, 2019, 13 : 00 PM [IST]
|
|
Meena Patangay
|
Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The tracks within this line of thought are safety between the industry and the market and then between the market and the consumer. Safer food promises healthier and longer lives and less costly health care, as well as a more resilient food industry.
Food laws can be traced back to times of the earliest societies. Ancient food regulations are referred to in Egyptian, Chinese, Hindu, Greek, and Roman literature. In the Middle Ages, the trade guilds exerted a powerful influence on the regulation of food trade and the prevention of falsification of food products. Later, the initiative in food control was taken on by the state, municipal, or other local authorities.
Food adulteration is a very important aspect of food safety and thus, legal history of India shows that many state legislations regarding food adulteration were in existence prior to Independence. Each state had made its own definition for the concept according to notion.
For the present attempt, it is suffice to quote one definition. The Bengal Food Act, 1919 defined adulteration as follows: "An article of food shall be deemed to be 'adulterated' if it has been mixed or packed with any other substance or if any part of it has been extracted so as it either affects injuriously its quality, substance or nature." To achieve uniformity in combating adulteration, all state legislations were repealed in 1954, and an exhaustive definition was conferred by Parliament to the term adulteration under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.
Food Legislation – Milestones in India
1899: States’ / Provinces’ own food laws with difference in standards for the same commodity –
- Conflicts in inter provincial trade.
1943: Central Advisory Board for Central Legislation that brings in uniformity throughout the country.
1954: Central Legislation – Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. Rules and Standards framed under the Act 1955.
History
The legislation which first dealt with food safety in India was the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954. It regulated the laws of the food industry along with six other laws – The Fruit Product Order of 1955, The Meat Food Products Order of 1973, The Vegetable Oil Products (Control) Order of 1947, The Edible Oils Packaging (Regulation) Order of 1998, The Solvent Extracted Oil, De-oiled Meal, and Edible Flour (Control) Order of 1967 and The Milk and Milk Products Order of 1992.
However due to the changing requirement of the food industry, The Food Safety and Standards Act was introduced in 2006. This law overrode and repealed all prior laws.
The Act was established to bring uniformity and a single reference point for all matters relating food safety and standards. It helped move from a multi-departmental and multi-level control to a single line of command.
This Act is enforced by two statutory authorities – Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and State Food Safety Authority. It should also be noted that this was possible because “Adulteration of foodstuff and other goods” was included in the concurrent list in the constitution of India.
Objectives of FSSA
1 To consolidate multiple laws and establish single point reference system
2 To establish Food Safety and Standards Authority
3 To regulate the manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import of food products
4 To ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption
Pre-FSSAI Scenario
Nine different laws and eight different ministries governing the food sector laws framed by different ministries/departments.
With different perspective and enforcement approach
Overlapping laws with different quality standards & labelling requirements
Regulatory Mechanism
Through Food Authority and the State Food Safety Authority
Central Advisory Committee regulates close cooperation and coordination between Centre, states and other stakeholders in the field of food including consumer organisation.
Scientific Committee - Consists of heads of scientific panels & 6 scientific experts. They will provide the scientific opinion on multi-sectoral, cross-cutting issues Scientific Panels
Nine panels on Food Additives, Pesticide Residues, GM Food, Biological Hazard, Labelling, Functional Food, Method of Sampling, Contaminants and Fish & Fisheries
Stakeholders
• Food Safety
• Research institutes/ laboratories
• Industry
• Farmers organisations
• Consumer organisations
• Government Agencies
• Regulators
A Leap Forward: Single Authority which takes care of
• Safety
• Monitoring and surveillance
• Employs full time officers
• Gets laboratories in public and private sectors involved
Food Categories Governed Health Supplements: Supplement to normal diet
Nutraceuticals : Isolates/extracts providing health benefit
FSDU: Supplement to dietary requirement arising due to health condition
FSMP: Dietary management of patients
Probiotic Foods: Food containing microbes beneficial to human health
Prebiotics: Food with prebiotic ingredients
Specialty Foods: Food containing plant or botanical ingredients conferring health benefit
NovelFoods: No history of safety/new technology
In India, the apex food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) implements and enforces food regulations prescribed in the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011.
In 2018, FSSAI directed 10 online food delivery platforms to delist their non-FSSAI licensed food business from their platform after receiving consumers’ complaints of sub-standard food being served on e-commerce platforms.
According to FSSAI, adulteration of food in India is growing at an alarming rate. This is primarily due to lack of compliance with requirements specified under these regulations. Provided below are the details:
|
Year
|
Number
of samples analysed
|
Number
of samples found adulterated
|
Percentage
of adulteration
|
|
2016-17
|
60,671
|
14,130
|
23%
|
|
2015-16
|
65,057
|
14,179
|
22%
|
|
2014-15
|
49,290
|
8,469
|
17%
|
Source: FSSAI Annual Reports
Food Regulatory Scenario in India
• Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006
• Legal Metrology Act, 2009 & Packaged Commodities Rules, 2011
• The Essential Commodities Act, 1955
• Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)
• Agmark
• Consumer Protection Act
The government is increasingly adopting stringent food safety regulations and sanctions to enhance compliance-related requirements across markets. The FSSAI, is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through regulation and supervision of food safety procedures. In previous years, the FSSAI has taken systematic steps to create a unifying framework. Its objective is to ensure consistent implementation of the law across states and Union Territories in India.
The FSSAI has Concentrated its efforts in six Major Areas
1. Establishment of globally benchmarked food product standards
2. Enforcement of the law consistently across all states and Union Territories
3. Facilitation of problem-free food imports
4. Implementation of credible testing of food through a robust lab network
5. Implementation of globally benchmarked food safety practices and processes
6. Provision of large-scale training and capacity-building in food business
7. Creation of a digital inspection platform to replace manual inspection
Between 2011 and 2017, a great deal of work related to setting up of standards and aligning these with global norms was completed by the FSSAI. Now it implements regular revisions and updates on an ongoing basis.
While the FSSAI is the apex regulatory authority for food products, six other agencies are also involved for specific purposes. To make available a single point of information for all food-related business compliance requirements, the Food Regulatory Portal provides important information and links it with those of other national agencies in the food safety ecosystem such as Legal Metrology, Customs, Plant and Animal Quarantine, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Agmark.
Challenges being Faced in Implementation
Despite India having a legal framework in place, it still struggles with enforcing food safety standards throughout the country, primarily due to the following reasons:
1. The complexity in understanding regulatory requirements results in a gap in effective implementation of standards.
2. There is inadequate infrastructure in laboratories or fewer laboratories than required. Even today, the number of laboratories per million people in the country is far below their number in countries such as China and the US.
3. Furthermore, one of the requirements under food safety is the need for implementation of ‘farm to fork’ traceability, which facilitates preventive and remedial measures that need to be undertaken in food safety regimes, as mandated by the Food Recall Procedure Regulation 2017 for food businesses in India.
4. According to the findings of the GS1 India survey, the majority of businesses do not have effective traceability systems across their food supply chains.
Currently, most Food and Beverage organisations have implemented a track and trace system up to ‘one-level down’ in their supply chains, i.e., up to the distributor level. Many developed and fast-developing countries have implemented legal traceability-related norms, e.g., the European Union (EU) 1169/2011, EU 178/2002 regulations, to ensure food safety, and exporting countries are under pressure to comply with these.
Conclusion
The new objectives under the Food Safety and Standards Act go far beyond the objectives of Prevention of Food Alteration Act. The preamble of Prevention of Food Alteration Act laid emphasis only on provisions which helped prevent adulteration while the Food Safety and Standards Act lays emphasis on all laws related to food. This includes manufactory, storage, registration, sale and import. It helps make the availability of food safe and wholesome for human consumption.
(The author is dean, administration, HoD, nutrition, at St Ann’s College for Women,Hyderabad. She can be contacted at meena.patangay@gmail.com.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|