BY INVITATION. Fix the flawed process of product pre-approval

The Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act states that the purpose of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is to ensure the safe consumption of food. And it spells out measures to attain this objective. Anything other than this is a deviation from the purpose for which the FSSAI has been constituted.

Yet, contrary to global practice, the FSSAI is keen on imposing a draconian Product Approval System (PAS) for all packaged foods and health supplements, one that does not necessarily guarantee food safety.

The PAS is in reality an e-approval and granted merely based on paper documentation. No Food Business Operator (FBO) would declare the presence of a toxic substance or a contaminant in the product. It is only by testing of randomly picked samples that the presence of health-endangering substances can be detected.

If the PAS is re-introduced, manufacturers of proprietary products will suffer a setback. A proprietary product is a regular food article prepared differently by each manufacturer.

For example, the ingredients of our favourite chips are potato, vegetable oil and salt. If one manufacturer uses sunflower oil, it is his proprietary food (A), and if another uses corn oil, this becomes another proprietary food item (B). Both producers need to get independent product approvals, according to the FSSAI’s current thinking.

But, globally, safe ingredients are listed and any FBO is free to use any ingredient from this list in a proprietary food — a logical implication which the FSSAI seems to disagree with.

If potato, salt, sunflower and corn oils are all deemed safe and none is banned by the FSSAI, how can its officials decide the safety of proprietary products A and B differently? Most products earlier rejected by FSSAI were based on such arbitrary decisions!

The FSSAI continues with the system despite a recent Supreme Court ruling doing away with the pre-approval system. They have even in fact announced that they are bringing back the PAS!

This will impact the productivity of companies and availability of products already being consumed by people. Employment opportunities will fold up and retrenchment of labour could be the outcome if companies are adversely impacted. Export opportunities will be lost and the “Make In India” dream will receive a setback as foreign industry will not want to suffer such unnecessary, unheard of restrictions.

The industry’s suggestion is to implement the Novel Ingredient Approval system. This is a global practice as well.

Ensure safe food products by picking up samples of marketed products and testing them out as outlined by the FSS Act. Notify as safe for use all ingredients and additives whose standards have already been defined under Codex Alimentarius, the World Health Organisation, Food & Agriculture Organisation and other international bodies.

Incorporate the Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association’s (IDMA) submitted list of over 4,000 ingredients, additives required for health supplements. It is meaningless to make each food product maker to apply under the PAS when its ingredients are listed as safe globally!

In India, 1,573 deaths were reported in 2014 from poisoning after eating cooked food. But replies to RTIs from every State do not indicate even a single incidence of death from health supplements consumed! This only substantiates the fact that the FSSAI needs to refocus its energies from instituting a meaningless PAS to ensuring an effective operational robust surveillance system for packaged food – as outlined by the FSS Act [Chapter VII Section 29 Point (3)]! Only this can guarantee that the food you eat is safe and not injurious to your health.

The writer is an expert in NeuroMarketing and Regulatory (Nutraceuticals, Pharmaceuticals). Views expressed are personal.

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