The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) through its circular dated 4th October 2019, has issued a draft guidelines on “Working with the private sector” in order to build a culture of self-compliance and to prevent food hazards across the food supply chain.
The draft guidelines cover all areas of public-private collaboration including selection of private industry representatives to scientific and technological panels, working groups, standards review groups and codex committees. Members of research institutions, consumer organisations and government departments are also included in the constitution of these bodies. Collaboration with private food laboratories for quality testing, training and capacity building, third party accreditation and outreach and awareness creation is also highlighted.
FSSAI encourages private sectors to establish specialized centers to develop a robust ecosystem for safe food and healthy and sustainable diet in the country and has initiated a scheme of ‘Food Safety Mitra’ to create an ecosystem of easily and low cost services for assisting FBOs to comply with the regulatory requirements.
The guidelines also lays down proper mechanism to ensure the independence of these bodies and to recuse private representatives in the bodies from deciding matters of conflict of interest.
FSSAI invites for comments or feedback from stakeholders and public, if any, by October 25, 2019. If any objection or suggestion which may be addressed to the Executive Director (Compliance Startegy), FSSAI, Food and Drug Administration Bhawan, Kotla Road, New Delhi-110002 or may be sent at ed-office@fssai.gov.in.
Click here to read the Notification.
