Food Safety and Standards Authority of India FSSAI has launched the Food Regulatory Portal today in New Delhi.
Launched with a vision of One Nation One Food Law, this portal is a powerful new tool for food businesses. Planned as a single interface for food businesses to cater to both domestic operations and food imports, this portal is an important milestone for effective and transparent implementation of the laws on food in the country.
Ashish Bahuguna, Chairperson, FSSAI; Pawan Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI; Celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor; Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Ayog and various other delegates from the food industry and ministry were present in the event.
This portal aims to create a robust environment for uniform implementation of the law across States / UTs and coordinated approach across central agencies, leading to a transparent and enabling business environment.
The Food Regulatory Portal is a full service, business-friendly portal for food businesses that focuses on six key areas viz. food standards; consistent enforcement; hassle free food imports; credible food testing; codified food safety practices; and training and capacity building. This would prove to be a game changer by addressing food business concerns across the spectrum by ensuring ease of entry; reduced burden of compliance and facilitating trade.
Speaking on the occasion, Ashish Bahuguna said that “the Food Regulatory Portal is a unique and comprehensive full service platform for food businesses, which would go a long way in raising the bar of the food safety in the country”. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, who launched the portal lauded the efforts of FSSAI and termed this as a “key milestone in India’s regulatory reforms” added further that “FSSAI’s efforts towards consistency and transparency in enforcement and ease of doing business in the food regulatory environment would garner the confidence of all stakeholders involved.”
Ease of entry is facilitated through an online licensing and registration platform (FLRS) hosted on this portal. FLRS has now been further simplified with timelines prescribed at each stage.
Food product standards have also been a major area of concern, particularly for investors wanting to bring in new products. As a starting point, India’s food standards have been benchmarked with Codex standards at the global level. To demystify standards, Indian Food Standards-Quick access (IFS.QA) system, a responsive IT platform has been created, where a user can access thousands of product standards and millions of provisions of additives and maximum residue limits for toxins and contaminants at the click of a button.
Pawan Agarwal termed it as “historic in the evolution of food safety laws in the country and bringing to life the spirit that is enshrined the Food Safety Act of 2006”. The Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 unified 9 existing laws into a single Act and laid the legal ground for One Nation, One Food Law. Eleven years later, the Food Regulatory Portal launched today lays a solid foundation for uniform implementation of this law, and will go down in history as another memorable milestone.
For credible and efficient food testing for food businesses, a nationwide network of all food testing labs on a single technology platform- Indian Food Laboratory Network (InFoLNet) has also been launched today. This would bring in much desired standardization in food testing, that is ‘one food product, one set of parameters and one parameter one test method’. Several measures towards trade facilitation, including a single window clearance fully integrated with Custom Authorities and risk-based inspection, have been adopted. To ensure hassle free imports, a ‘Manual for Food Imports’ has also been developed.
Chef Sanjeev Kapoor remarked that “Food is the second major reason for people to travel. India with its rich diversity in food is a much sought-after destination, making food safety paramount. Food is a common language that can bring all stakeholders together on a common platform to ensure safe and nutritious food. FSSAI has done a commendable job over the years in doing so in a very systematic way. I’m happy to contribute my time to support their efforts.”
The earlier system of product-by-product approval has been discontinued. Businesses can now develop their own products based on their proprietary recipes subject to using standard ingredients and corresponding additives. Novel food products and ingredients will also be allowed but after the associated risk is assessed in a time-bound manner. Finally, groups comprising of experts from the industry would review the standards on an ongoing basis to make overall food standards more robust that promote public health objectives while allowing the industry to introduce new products in India. All these initiatives find a place on the Food Regulatory Portal to create transparency and reduce barriers to entry.
A major concern for food businesses is related to enforcement and compliance. While the focus is on self-compliance, the practice would be ‘to trust but verify’. To reduce compliance burden on food businesses, the Food Regulatory Portal focuses on consistency in enforcement across States and UTs. A two-pronged approach has been adopted, which would have far-reaching implications. First, a single nationwide manual for Food Safety Officers (FSOs) has now been developed. It documents practices and procedures to be followed by the field staff as well as an 8-point code of ethics for them to their build capacity and change mindsets. A nationwide systematic training of regulatory staff has also been initiated.
Secondly, digital and smart technologies are being leveraged ‘to do more with less’ and bring an end to arbitrariness and ad hoc-ism in inspections and sampling. Food Safety Compliance through Regular Inspections and Sampling (FoSCoRIS,) formally launched today replaces manual inspections with digital inspections. It uses simple mobile devices with dashboards to monitor, on real-time basis, at the district, state and national level. For consistency, standard matrices have been developed for inspection for various kinds of food businesses. FoSCoRIS would thus ensure a consistent experience to food businesses across States and UTs, thereby building their confidence in the regulatory environment.