A New Era in Food Safety?

We really aren’t known for our extreme respect of or adherence to the law with the very flexible self-serving principles of the wild wild west being easily applied to just about any sector in the country. Why do I speak thus? This past Friday (5th of August 2011) finally saw the implementation of the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 implemented (Click to download).

The inner workings of the food sector have been fairly arcane till now with the average consumer having little or no idea about what to do about food that caused food poisoning or stores that sell expired products as a matter of practice among many other possible issues. This act is aimed at improving the overall food scenario in the country from a health and hygiene point of view. Will it succeed? I read the act and discuss here some of the portions I deemed relevant.

Let’s start with the (3) Definitions, as things start getting interesting right here.

• Points (g) and (i): They’ve conceptually separated contaminants and extraneous matter, which is a good thing to start with.
• Point (n):“Food business” means any undertaking, whether for profit or not and whether public or private, carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution of food, import and includes food services, catering services, sale of food or food ingredients; – This seems to enfold in-house lunch buffets for company employees and other such arrangements. If I read this right, it may mean that while the caterer will have liability, the company that hired it may share some too; i.e. the caterer is liable to the company and the company is liable to it’s employees.
• Point (zf): ‘Misbranded food’ has been extensively explained to include most issues one has with food packaging, including but not limited to misleading claims, incorrect/copycat branding, incorrect label information, incomplete label information and so on.

Nearly the whole of the first half of the document deals with the structure and setting up of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, which I’ve skipped as it isn’t of immediate interest though we’ll probably need to take a good look at it to understand the entire set up better. Highlights:

• 1 Chairperson
• 22 members, one third (7.3 people) of which should be women.
• 7 Members from various government bodies
• 2 Representatives from the food industry one of whom will be from a small scale industry
• 2 Representatives from a consumer organisation
• 3 Food technologists or scientists
• 5 Rotated member positions to represent states and union territories
• 2 Representatives from Farmer’s organisations
• 1 Representative for retail organisations

This point on, the main body of the act proceeds, from which I’ll talk about specific sections that appear to be of interest.

• Section 22 instructs people not to “manufacture, distribute, sell or import” certain classes of foods. Of particular interest is the mention of genetically modified foods here. Considering the US is one of the largest producers of soy of which 80% is genetically modified and India one of the largest importers, I wonder what’s going to happen. [References available on request]
• Section 25 talks about not importing misbranded, sub-standard or food containing extraneous matter. Misbranded is fine, but I wonder how an importer will know of the substandard nature or contents of a consignment.
• Section 26.4 transforms a bill/cash memo into a guarantee of adherence to the contents of the section even if such a guarantee isn’t explicitly mentioned on the bill. This means that if a food retailer gives you a bill, he is implictly stating that his establishment complies with the provisions of section 26 of this act.
• Section 27 deals with liabilities and explicitly deems the wholesaler as liable for acts such as supplying expired food and the retailer for acts such as selling expired food among other acts like incorrect storage.
• Section 31 stresses the need for a license, but also separates street vendors from organised business. 31.4 in the same section demonstrates a little forward thinking with the provision that if one has applied for a license and it hasn’t been issued for up to 2 months and the application isn’t rejected the applicant may start his/her food business. In such a case, the license will eventually be granted… possibly accompanied by improvement notices by the designated officer.
• Section 35 seems well intentioned but fairly impractical, requiring medical practitioners, when notified, to inform officers in their local area of cases of food poisoning.
• Section 40 empowers you to inform the vendor and get purchased food analyzed by the government Food Analyst and if found deficient per this act, entitles you to a refund. Prosecution via this act may follow.

I’m going to start a new section for the penalties.

• Continuing on the provisions in section 40, section 50 talks about penalizing a person who sells to a purchaser, food that is not compliant with the provisions of this act or food that is not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by the purchaser. This is slightly confusing as one would expect a penalty to be applied for food that does not meet the sellers claims as opposed to what is expected by the purchaser. The fine? Up to INR 5,00,000. The same situation with a street vendor (Section 31.2) invites a penalty of upto INR 25,000.
• The selling of substandard food invites a penalty of up to INR 5,00,000.
• The selling of misbranded food invites a penalty of up to INR 3,00,000 and the destruction of said food material.
• Here’s the fun part: If you publish or are party to the publishing of misleading advertisements etcetera, you invite a penalty of up to INR 10,00,000. I’m not sure if that’s upto INR 10,00,000 per person involved in the case or upto INR 10,00,000 as a total collectible penalty on the case.
• Found a hair in your food or found it to be unsanitary? Since hair should fall under the definition of ‘extraneous matter’, the seller can be fined up to INR 1,00,000. (Sections 54 and 56) Gunjan of Panda Wok, NOIDA is in agreement with this section, but wonders how the owner of the hair will be identified and who will bear the expenses for methods like DNA testing.
• Even possessing an adulterant (for yourself or on behalf of anyone else) invites fines of upto INR 2,00,000 (non-injurious in nature) and upto INR 10,00,000 (injurious in nature). Section 57.
• Section 64 speaks of compounding the maximum fines and jail terms for subsequent offenses, finally resulting in cancellation of the person’s license.
• So what do you get? All of these are penalties to the selling entity and you don’t see a penny. Wrong. If you die, your next of kin will receive a minimum of INR 5,00,000; grevious injury will see you richer by a maximum of INR 3,00,000 and any other injuries will pad your medical budget by a maximum of INR 1,00,000. Not very much for individuals, but it adds up to quite a deterrant, combined with penalties, for unscruplous food business operators.

Quite helpfully, the act also specifies that in the case of offences by companies, ‘every person who at the time the offence was committed was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company, as well as the company, shall be deemed to be guilty of the offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against  and punished accordingly…’. So, restaurant managers and F&B Directors are also liable due to their responsible positions and areas of responsibility. This may also result in a fair amount of introspection within companies and questions being raised to the top management internally, due to concerns of personal legal liability.

The rest of the act deals with Tribunals and other such that I didn’t find to be of immediate interest, unless of course one is suing or getting sued.

In summary I find the act, though much needed, skims over implementation details, which are required for a subject as complex as food. First time restaurateurs on a small budget will need details as they don’t have the option of hiring overpriced consultants. When one speaks of unsanitary practices, which practices does one mean and does one have issues with the practices themselves or with the result of those practices? What are those results? With the addition of sufficient detail to be used as a knowledge resource, this document will be complete in my opinion.

Do download the act from the link above and I look forward to your comments and thoughts.

Front page image by Nick Bradsworth.

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