News: Quality Council of India (QCI) at the behest of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has launched a “Scheme for approval of Hygiene Rating Audit Agencies”.
Objective: To scale up Hygiene Rating by increasing the number of recognised Hygiene Rating Audit Agencies in the country.
Food Hygiene Rating Scheme:
- It is an online, transparent scoring and rating process.
- It is a certification system by FSSAI for food businesses supplying food directly to consumers, either on or off-premise.
- The food establishments are rated based on food hygiene and safety conditions observed at the time of audit.
Aim: It aims to allow consumers to make informed choices about the places where they eat out. By these consumer choices, encourage businesses to improve their hygiene standards. Thus reduce the incidence of food-borne illness.
Implementation: The ratings system will be implemented in 2 parts:
- Hygiene ratings – It will score and rate the FBO on meeting basic requirements ensuring good hygiene practices for all processes. This includes handling raw material, maintaining clean premises, storing food etc.
- Hygiene ratings + (Also known as “Responsible place to eat”) –
- Its compliance will enhance the FBO’s scope and responsibility towards providing safe and nutritious food to a larger community.
- They will be motivated to taking care of their employees, the underprivileged and also serving the customer beyond the mandatory, by making them aware of healthy choices and giving them access to such options.
Significance:
- A roll-out of hygiene ratings will not only be for the good of all consumers but will also be instrumental in changing perceptions of the Indian Food sector across the globe.
- It can increase investor confidence in the regulatory environment and hence attract more funding in this sector.
- By creating awareness amongst the consumers and food business owners (FBO), it will improve quality of food supply and increase demand as well. Both, size of the pie and share for all food players will expand.
- Many avoidable illnesses due to food and water contamination will be contained, creating great economic value due to less downtime of the workforce and reduced hospital bills.
