Food In Government Canteens To Become More Safe And Hygienic

Government canteens serve over thousands of employees all over the country and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has trained 80 staffers from these canteens to ensure that the food served is safe, wholesome and hygienic. The staffs that are being trained will become food safety supervisors for canteens run by the government’s departments.

SNF@Workplace

“This training is a part of FSSAI’s recently launched SNF@Workplace (safe and nutritious food at the workplace) initiative, which aims to educate people on safe and healthy diets and developing an overall ecosystem for safe and nutritious food in workplaces,”, the chief executive officer of FSSAI, Pawan Agarwal told Hindustan Times. “It encourages employers to adopt a systematic approach to ensuring safe and wholesome food for their employees, both as a measure of employee welfare and to enhance workplace productivity,” he added.

As a means to enable an environment to ensure food safety and nutrition or everyone, the government has adopted a comprehensive approach towards the initiative by including measures that the workplace administration can take by themselves.

Guidelines for canteens

Canteens have been instructed to follow guidelines to make sure that the food they serve is safe and wholesome, and employees were provided with useful tips and suggestions to eat and stay healthy by choosing right. This has come after the department received complaints regarding the bad quality of food being served in canteens in educational institutions and other places. The regulator had written to state food commissioners to ensure that canteens are licensed or registered under Food Safety and Standards Act regulations.

“We ask FBOs to have one supervisor for every 25 food handlers,” reported Agarwal. It is to be noted that FSSAI made it mandatory for a food business operator (FBO) to have at least one trained food safety supervisor, in an order issued last year.