Coca-Cola India and Food Safety and Standard Authority of India the country’s food regulator signed a pact under which the US multinational will train 50,000 street food vendors over three years in the basic tenets of food safety and hygiene. The MoU was signed by Pawan Kumar Agarwal, chief executive officer, FSSAI, and Venkatesh Kini, president, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia.
“This is a strategic partnership with global and India corporates for social impact investment around areas related to safe and nutritious food,” said the country’s apex food regulator.
To be taken up under the government body’s Clean Street Food project, the initiative aims to ensure safe and nutritious street food for all. While the aerated drinks giant will deploy its trainers and available infrastructure, FSSAI will ensure the relevance of the training content and will oversee overall delivery of objectives.
Agarwal said, “It is good that the corporate is taking responsibility to ensure safe and nutritious food across the country. This is part of the programme called Safe and Nutritious Food launched by FSSAI on completion of the 10 years of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.”
The first leg of the programme will roll out by the middle of next month from Ludhiana in Punjab. It will then expand to cover 14 other locations through CocaCola’s bottling plant network. Besides Punjab, it will cover Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh and the National Capital Region.
Kini said, “This is an effort to make a significant contribution to improve the lives of street vendors and enhance the eating out experience of the consumers. This is part of our ongoing programme, called Parivartan, wherein we have been training kirana retailers for the past 10 years. The present project will extend the programme to the street food vendors.”
In Goa, FSSAI trained about 700 street vendors in collaboration with Nestle. The apex regulator plans to expand its presence, particularly in schools across Delhi, under the safe and nutritious food programme.