Namma Chennai : Keeping Food Safety First at Marina. A job well done by the Food Safety Department

A team from the Food Safety department were on a mission this Friday when they set out to Marina Beach. Based on complaints,around 300 hundred food stalls in the 3 km stretch between Anna Square and Lighthouse were raided and inspected.

Ten teams of officials were mobilized for the drive and they did a top notch job of checking the stalls for adulteration, expired products, unauthorized addition of food colours and personal hygiene of food handlers.

The sad fact of the matter is that a lot of roadside food vendors are not aware of basic food safety practices and they are just trying as hard as they can to etch out a living for themselves. Drives like this are not only for the purpose of seizing and nabbing and terrorizing the vendors. That is not the intention at all. The intention is to make sure that no rotten, out of date, unsafe food is sold to customers and also to make the vendors aware of the dangers of selling food that is not handled or stored properly.

Nip the Bud

Officials seized 100kg of decayed fruits, 24kg of rotten fish and 7kg of expired ice-cream and biscuits. In addition, they also took away 40 litres of expired soft drinks and 31 litres of reused oil.

It is a scary prospect, but efforts such as these by R Kathiravan, designated officer, Tamil Nadu food safety and drug administration department and his team make us feel a good that issues like these are slowly being taken care of.

None of the vendors were fined this time as the officials realised that most of them did not even know of food safety practices. Even though a fine of upto Rs.25,000 can be charged under  under the Food Safety and Standrads Act, 2006, the officials find it difficult to drag the vendors to courts. Most of them do not own the push carts and it is hard to trace them. The vendors from whom the food was seized were let off this time with a strict warning notice and the information that food safety offices would be issuing spot fines if the same vendor was found defaulting again. They were also advised on how best to avoid contamination of food and were informed that more raids would follow.

It is heartening to see such efforts being taken and we hope that more such efforts with the participation of officials,customers and vendors together can bring about a great change.

The Chennai Corporation has enumerated nearly 1,500 hawkers on Marina beach. For any food related complainants WhatsApp to 94440 42322.