Nitte University organises worshop to mark World Food Safety day 2023

Nitte University organises worshop to mark World Food Safety day 2023

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, June 09, 2023: The United Nations has declared June 7th as World Food Safety day to highlight the importance of food safety and the role all players in food chain – from primary production to consumption or from farm to plate. The theme of World Food Safety Day 2023 is “Food standards save lives”. But food standards and science based and too complex for the food industry to understand.

To create awareness about food safety standards and improve the understanding about these in the industry, Nitte DST Technology Enabling Center, in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) organized a Worshop on “Understanding food safety standards” at Ocean Pearl Hotel on June 7th, 2023. The workshop was attended by over 70 participants including food business operators, small scale producer organization and academia. Inaugurating the workshop, Prof Dr. M.S. Modithaya, Vice Chancellor, Nitte University highlighted the impact of food processing and out eating habits on food safety. Mr. Ananthesh Prabhu, Vice President, KCCI indicated that the workshop meets the request from food industries in the region. Dr. Divya Suresh from FSSAI spoke about the need to create awareness about food safety standards and processes to meet these standards.

In the technical session, Dr. Debabrata Kanungo, former chairman of FSSAI Scientific Panel on Pesticide Residues explained about the scientific process of food safety risk assessment with respect of food additives, contaminants. toxins and pesticides. He elaborated on the functioning of international risk assessment bodies like Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and Joint meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR). Dr Iddya Karunasagar, former Chairman of FSSAI scientific Panel on biological hazards explained about microorganisms in foods and the scientific basis for setting microbiological standards. He elaborated on the need to follow good hygienic practices and HACCP to produce food meeting the standards. He also gave examples of microbiological standards in Codex Alimentarius Commission and the risk assessments carried out by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on Microbiological Risk Assessment (JEMRA).

The discussions were moderated by Dr. Indrani Karunasagar. She connected the deliberations of the workshop with the theme of World Food safety Day 2023 and emphasized on the need to understand the basis for food safety standards and the best practices that food business operators from farm to plate need to follow to comply with the standards. The discussions covered improving food hygiene and food safety in all segments of the food industry including street vendors, quality control, certifications and accreditations required by food testing laboratories. Dr. Krishna Kumar, MD CAMPCO informed the participants about food handler training being conducted by CAMPCO at the chocolate factory in Puttur. The meeting ended with vote of thanks to all the resource persons and participants.