Kochi: The wait of the public for quality food and hygiene in restaurants and eateries will continue with the deadline for registering them under the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 extended by a year.

Following a request from the state government, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has extended the last date of registration to February 4, 2014. The deadline set for the same had expired on February 4. The authority had given a six-month transitory period for the act to come into force from the earlier Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, which expired in August 2012.

Food companies say the move will delay new product development and innovation

Probiotic ice-cream, digestive biscuits or lowsugar jams may be flying off retail shelves, but food companies are no longer being allowed to sell new products without taking approvals from the government-promoted Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). According to a new and modified FSSAI advisory issued to all food companies last month, any new or existing product which is ‘proprietary’ – in other words not classified in the food act – will need to follow a regulatory ‘new product approval’ guideline, as laid down by the FSSAI.

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India had standards regulating 350 food commodities and plans were afoot to bring in more commodities under the purview of the regulating body, according to chairman of FSSAI K Chandramouli.

Speaking during the launch programme of ‘Food Safety for all’, a mass contact education programme on food safety, standards and unsafe food, Chandramouli said that FSSAI was planning to increase the list of food commodities so that it corresponded to international level.

New Delhi: Food retail outlets and restaurants are busy revisiting their working models with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) cracking the whip to ensure stricter food safet

Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) is planning to replicate the Gujarat model to ensure street food safety in eight cities including Bhubaneshwar, Hyderabad, Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata among others.

This apart, a senior official of FSSAI said here on Thursday that of the Rs 4,500 crore sanctioned by the Centre under the 12th Five Year Plan, 70 per cent would be given to states to develop infrastructure facilities which includes setting up of food testing laboratories.

19 commodities are to be covered by the new labelling rule

India might not have started growing genetically modified (GM) food crops, but it does import food products that contain GM ingredients. Consumers who buy them have no way of knowing what they contain. Recently, the department of consumer affairs, under the Union food and consumer affairs ministry, decided to take a corrective measure to help consumers make an informed choice. It mandated that all packaged food products containing GM ingredients should carry a GM label from January 1, 2013.

India will soon have a scientific regulatory agency responsible for the safety of the nation’s domestically produced and imported foods, cosmetics, drugs, biologics, medical devices, and radiological products.

Proposed on the lines of Centre for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in USA and the Centre for Disease Control, the new agency to be set up under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will be responsible for promoting and protecting public health by ensuring that nation’s food supply and cosmetics are safe and honestly labelled. Sources said that the “implementation of this project will be started after the final approval of the 12th plan by the National Development Council, which is expected shortly.”

You are being led up the garden path by manufacturers of food and health products making tall claims in advertisements.

Directors of 14 regional cancer centres across the country, including the Indian Dental Association and Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Health Minister Ghulab Nabi Azad urging them to bring in a nationwide ban on the sale of gutka/pan masala products in the country.

The move comes after cancer specialists/oncologists, oral cancer victims and public health experts lauded the government for banning gutka in over 10 States under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regulations, which prohibit the addition of tobacco or nicotine in food, and urged the government to ensure effective implementation of this notification in all the States.