5 Street Food Vendors from Jaipur, Jabalpur, Patna and Hyderabad awarded Recognitions for their commitment to Food Safety.

Udaipur Beverages-Jabalpur, Schreiber Dynamix Dairies, Baramati, Kandahari Beverages Saha Plant and Kellogg Taloja Plant receive Awards for Outstanding Performance in Food Safety in 2015

Fig 1: Levels of Recognition: Industry                                 Fig 2: Levels of Recognition: Street Food

Ms. Anuradha Prasad, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries gave away the Awards at the 6th CII National Awards Ceremony for Food Safety in New Delhi on December 1st 2015. She appreciated CII’s inclusive growth agenda by including Street Food Vendors in the Awards program. Ms. Prasad also made reference to the recently launched Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan initiative, which she believed was a unique effort by industry to sensitize Small and Medium Businesses, Street Food Vendors and Consumers on Food Safety.

Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan is a Pan India Industry initiative of CII with Government, NASVI, VOICE  to raise Awareness on Hygienic and Food Safety practices and Build Capacity on Safe Food for All. Cargill India is actively supporting the initiative as the National Industry Partner.

Ms Prasad added that if industries volunteered to train street food vendors and consumers it would be highly effective in terms of outreach and quality towards raising their awareness on food safety.

Dr Mrinalini Darswal, Commissioner of Food Safety, Dept of Food Safety, GNCT of Delhi, touched upon the provisions of the Food Safety and Standards Act and aspects with respect to enforcement. She further added that Industry could consider adopting a district or a zone of each of the 11 Districts Delhi NCR for upgrading Food Safety and Quality of Street Food Vendors in that area.

Earlier, Mr Piruz Khambatta, Chairman, CII Food Safety Awards Committee and CMD Rasna International reiterated CII's commitment to make India the Food Factory of the World through value addition , cost effectiveness and world class standards.

Mr Mayank Jalan, Co Chairman Food Processing Committee and CMD Keventer Agro presented a short capsule on industry’s engagement with stakeholders and its collective solidarity to collaborate for strengthening nationwide action on Food Safety through Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan^TM. He urged the Industry to actively support the initiative so that outreach could be maximised.

68 % applicants were from the Small & Medium Industries and Street food businesses with assessment involving more than 80 qualified Assessors from a pool of 250 assessors. 3 sectors covering 4 Food Businesses in the Beverages, Ready To Eat and Dairy, out of the participating 9 sectors, qualified for the Awards with Outstanding Performance in Food Safety 2015. These were:

Recognition certificates on Silver Rating was awarded to D.K Litti Corner a Street Food Vendor of Patna. 4 others from Jabalpur, Jaipur and Hyderabad were awarded Bronze rating. As an incentive for embracing the principles of food safety and quality in their day to day work, FSSAI provided cheques of Rs 5000 each to the Winner Representatives of Street Food Category.

The stringent codes of the 4 stage evaluations comprising technical assessment by trained food professionals, calibration by sector specific calibrators and subsequent evaluations by the Awards Committee and a final round of evaluation by a distinguished panel of Jury resulted in recommendation of Winners. The Street Food Applicants which qualified for the recognitions underwent a round of surprise checks as well. The contest saw a very close competition between the best food safety practitioners in India. Other well deserving applicant units nominated by the Jury were awarded with Certificates of Significant Achievements, Strong Commitment and Letters of Appreciation for their appreciable efforts in food safety.

The Jury and Awards committee comprised:

·         Mr. Ravi Mathur, Chairman  of Jury, CII National Award for Food Safety; Chairman, CII Expert Group on Food Safety & Quality & CEO, GS1 India (under Ministry of Commerce)

·         Prof. Ram Rajasekharan , Director; CFTRI, Mysore 

·         Ms. Harita Vasireddi, Managing Director, Vimta Laboratories Ltd

·         Dr Uttam Kumar Chatterjee, CEO, TPM Consulting Co.

·         Mr. Piruz Khambatta was the Chairman of the Awards Committee of Food Safety Awards.

·         B. Thiagarajan, Executive Director & President, Blue Star Ltd.and Ravichandran P.  President, Danfoss India were the distinguished members of the Awards Committee.

The Jury & Award Committee Members and Assessors were felicitated for their excellent contribution to the Award Program

Mr Ashish Bahuguna, Chairman, FSSAI sent his recorded message to congratulate the winners , applicants and assessors of the CII National Award for Food Safety 2015.

Summarized below are the Award Trophy & Certificate Recognition Winners in different Sectors and levels of CII National Award for Food Safety 2015.

New Delhi

2^nd December 2015