Food safety consultant

Need for Simplified Safety & Hygiene Tracking Solution   

 This pandemic of an unmatched and unimaginable scale has compelled all of us to evolve and adapt to the changing circumstances and new challenges. To prevent the spread of the infection, we have adopted ways, such as practicing high levels of hygiene and sanitation, reducing close contact and maintaining physical distance, being in isolation, and other innovative approaches. All of these new methods somehow has slowed down the rhythm of our lives. It has taught us how preparedness and being well-equipped for the future is extremely crucial, making it an integral part of our lifestyle.

Reimagining Public Spaces Post Covid-19 Crisis

Indubitably, Covid-19 has changed the world around us. Social facilities, such as malls, multiplexes, gyms, clubs, spas, and other such places have taken a massive hit due to the outbreak. In recent months, the idea of public interaction has changed to a large extent. The spaces we live, work, socialize, shop, study, and seek health care in won’t be the same anymore. It will be a challenge for these establishments to bounce back immediately.

With the onset of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, the food business industry saw many ups & downs. Amidst the sudden full-stop for many big brand names, a bunch of local Micro, Small & Medium Food Enterprises saw a steep rise in demand as well as support from the government. It also seems the unlock and the post-COVID India will further guarantee the steady rise of such enterprises. So here is a checklist to help MSMEs help mark themselves COVID-Safe & Compliant to the various standards of India’s Food Industry. From FSSAI License to Food testing in Mumbai, we’ve got everything covered.

FSSAI Registration

The registration and licensing of food businesses in India are governed by its apex food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. FSSAI Registration is a basic license and it is required for all the FBO involved in the small-scale food business. 

You can apply for FSSAI registration by submitting a Form A to the Food and Safety Department.

In case your food business has an annual turnover exceeding 12 lakhs you should consider applying for an FSSAI License too.

Food Testing in Mumbai

Food Testing involves a bunch of tests that determine the quality & standards of one’s food product and help the manufacturers to comply with FSSAI standards & better their product.

Nutritional Labelling

Under the regulations of the Indian nutritional labeling act, it has now become a mandatory aspect of every processed food product's packaging. Nutritional labels help in finding out all the essential attributes to be mentioned on packaged food products.

Shelf Life Testing

An essential step before launching or modification of any food/beverage product. Shelf-life is determined using two different types of tests; accelerated & normal, and helps manufacturers define ‘best before’ & ‘use by’ dates for consumers.

Sensory Evaluation

Sensory Analysis helps manufacturers and marketers in the decision-making process by precisely evaluating a consumer’s food or beverage based on the senses like sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, and feelings. Experts at Equinox can help you understand how the Sensory Evaluation process works and how the analysis can help improve your products' customer experience.

To know more about these tests and how they help improve your product, achieve complete COVID Safety & FSSAI Compliance, you can visit the Food Safety in Mumbai website.

Hygiene Auditing

Hygiene Audits form a crucial point in the Food Safety Management System (FSMS) of any FBO identifying the level of compliance with FSSAI basic food safety and hygiene standards. They ensure; an extensive inspection of your food processing facility, Identify any possible loopholes in the company’s FSMS, help establish an absolute Food Safety Management System, reduce the risk of manufacturing substandard products & promote a healthy brand reputation.

Food Safety Training

Being one of the most essential services, the food industry has to take special precautions to stay safe from the Coronavirus. The regulator, in order to ensure the same, introduced a mandatory ‘Awareness Training’ under its FoSTaC program. The training covers vital topics including; Understanding Corona Virus & COVID-19: Symptoms, Spread, Responsibilities of Food Business Operators (FBO), Preventive Measures to be taken by FBOs of different Food Sector, & other important precautions as suggested by the Government

COVID-Safety Audits

Many Food & Hygiene auditing companies have introduced COVID safety audits to help food businesses put into place and test COVID safety measures & standards. India’s Largest Auditing Company, Equinox Labs, has introduced a special COVID Safety Audit that defines the various COVID safety measures and audits the processes to certify your facility as COVID-prepared. There are also many other initiatives like Safe Place to Eat, Hygiene Quotient, Hygiene Rating, etc. that can help in not just ensuring but also a certifying COVID-safety.

Once you are done ticking off the above requirements, your MSME would be not just FSSAI Compliant but also COVID-Safe. Find out more about these processes and help ease navigation through these processes, visit Food Testing in Mumbai. 

The current situations have proven that local MSMEs have a large number of opportunities coming up promising growths in unpredictable ways. It would be wise not to leave any stone unturned or measures ignored that could hamper the growth process.

Equinox labs have 14+ years of experience in Air, Water & Food Testing services and a leader in Food Safety Auditing. We are an FSSAI Approved, NABL Accredited Lab with a PAN – India presence.

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven how a slight ignorance towards basic hygiene practices can result in life-threatening situations. This live example should be enough for us to realize the importance of maintaining a high daily hygiene quotient. Given the current situation and the government issued lockdown, Housing Societies need to pay special attention to keep their premises’ safety & hygiene as maximum public interactions are now confined within the society with people going out only for essential reasons. Having noted that, keeping track of daily processes isn’t as easy as it sounds and comes with a certain amount of guaranteed hassle, high monitory investment and human resources. As per the recently introduced government standards, many fo the regular activities have been restricted and arranging the aforementioned resources has become difficult. 

In the wake of the pandemic, there’s a substantial and lasting change in the way we lead our lives. Health and hygiene have become the most important factors in our personal as well as professional lives. Hygiene is something which can no longer be ignored, taken lightly or can be dealt carelessly with. Good hygiene was an essential part of our life before too, but now cleanliness and hygiene will become the new core for us. 

Ensuring safety and health of consumers as well as employees will play an important role in business continuity and sustainability. Tracking daily safety and hygiene practices and ensuring compliance is a challenge. In order to help establishments build safer spaces, Equinox Labs have come up with a technology-driven solution designed to help various organizational sectors and establishments. Hygiene Quotient is a hygiene tracking solution app for food, hospitality, retail, and manufacturing businesses to help monitor and maintain the daily hygiene requirements in compliance with the regulations.

Constant manual monitoring beyond a point isn’t effective or scalable. Therefore, we need a technology-based solution to take the load off the business owners, heads of the site or facility, and managers to guarantee compliance and to improve the cleaning and sanitization process on the premises. 

Hygiene Quotient is an easy-to-use app and user-friendly with minimum intervention that collects real-time visual evidence of your site and delivers instant feedback plus metrics. This app takes the load off the business owners by ensuring real-time monitoring and identifying the faulty areas or any violations to help improve your daily hygiene score. You can ensure safety and compliance in just a few simple steps. Click and submit the site evidence, let the Equinox Quality Assurance Team grade your site to give you real-time feedback, and based on it you can improve your hygiene score. 

Recognizing Company Efforts towards Employee Health & Security

Modern-day companies take immense efforts to ensure the health and safety of their employees, assuring them complete workplace safety. Their efforts, however important and necessary, lay mostly unrecognized or unappreciated. The ‘Safe Place to Work’ is an initiative that aims at not just acknowledging but, also rating and attesting these efforts. The certification program guarantees a 360 approach towards establishing employee health and security, benefiting the employee as well as the employer. 

Under the program, workplaces are audited based on a carefully curated list of safety standards and based on the audit analysis, attested as a ‘Safe Place to Work’. 

The standards have been curated by experts, from the domain of; Facility Management, EHS, Food Safety and a team of medical doctors. ‘Safe Place to Work’ parameters are customized to put up with the requirements of different industries and their working ethics. The standards cover; physical security, electrical safety, fire safety, infrastructural safety and food safety. In the view of the recent crisis, the standards have been updated to accommodate streamlined measures of personal hygiene, environmental safety and documentation & record-keeping. 

With guaranteed results involving; added brand value, increased productivity, stakeholder trust and recognition in the industry, the standards have successfully proven to increase the company’s output. 

The Corona Outbreak and the ensuing lockdown are examples enough to understand how dangerous ignoring basic health & hygiene safety can be. Stringent safety & hygiene standards will be the new normal in the post-COVID world and it would become a social responsibility of each and every citizen to comply with them. 

Aiming to establish the importance of employee health & safety across Indian organizations and instilling the idea of employees recognizing company efforts, the program is a win-win opportunity. Amidst these confusing times, the initiative promises to set relevant standards to help keep the society safe.

Institutions across India are applying to become ‘Eat Right Campus’ Here is how you can be one too!

With an increasing number of people willingly opting to eat meals from canteens/cafeterias over home cooked food, the chances of food contamination increase too. In order to control this situation, FSSAI, under the Eat Right India movement has institutionalized the concept of ‘Eat Right Campus’. The Initiative called the ‘Eat Right Campus’ by FSSAI is a nationwide campaign which aims to create an environment of safe food and healthy eating in various campuses. Under the scheme, campuses across India will be awarded a five-star rating certificate based on whether or not the premises provide and follow food safety standards as per the eat right campus checklist.

Who can be an Eat Right Campus? Any establishment with defined premises that handles or serves food directly/indirectly can apply to be an Eat Right Campus. The only eligibility criteria to apply for the certification process is having to have an FSSAI license. Hence, any FSSAI licensed institution with defined premises and food handling activities, managed by the campus establishment and/or run by third parties, can apply to become a certified Eat Right Campus. How will becoming an Eat Right Campus help your Brand?

Consumers are always impacted by FSSAI rules and regulations. This time FSSAI has garnered the attention because of hygiene rating which has been able to influence the Indian masses.

The recent regulation passed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on hygiene rating will allow consumers to choose clean and safe places of dining out. Under the scheme, restaurants will need to display their hygiene rating on their doors. This, in turn, will ensure that consumers do not make unhealthy choices and rather opt for a well informed eating lifestyle.

The idea of introducing this scheme is to provide a wholesome and safe experience while also raising the standard of dining out. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also plans on training 170,000 supervisors to check the safety of food served. The added ratings will play as a motivation for key restaurant owners to strive and become better. It will also eliminate eating chains that pose a health risk to consumers.

Packaged Food in Corporate Companies-YES OR NO??

The busier work schedules followed by the majority of employees in today’s era has left no choice but to rely on packaged food products. Convenience food has grown immensely in the Indian markets for the occupied people. With spending maximum time in the corporate offices, they hardly have time to cook home-made meals. But has anyone given a thought on its risks while relishing those food products?

Corporate Companies has to look after the health of the employee’s and warn them against such eating practices. As there are companies which keep such packaged food in their cafeterias and employees are induced to consume them. It’s a proven fact that cooked meals are the best but in modern times, people barely find time to do so. This makes them dependent on processed packaged food.

What is processed food?

Processed foods refer to any type of food that has been altered in some way from its original state. The food products are altered severely from their original state that and by the time the consumer is actually eating the item it barely resembles its original form. Any type of baking or frying is going to process food items, but when one does that process by themselves one has greater control over what ingredients are used. Hence, there is control of what goes into the body.

Here are a few examples of the types of processed foods that most often sneak their way into our diets:

Breakfast cereal Bread Canned veggies Chips Cookies “Snack” or granola bars

The risks of consuming packaged food are gross and cannot be neglected. We provide you with nine reasons why processed food is unfit for consumption.

1. High in sugar and high-fructose corn syrup

Sugar can have devastating effects on metabolism that go way beyond its calorie content. It can lead to insulin resistance, high triglycerides, increased levels of harmful cholesterol and increased fat accumulation in the liver and abdominal cavity. Diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer are all caused due to one common factor which is sugar.

2. Engineered for over consumption

Many processed foods have been engineered to be so incredibly “rewarding” to the brain, that they overpower anything we might have come across in nature. Good food is good, but foods that are engineered to be hyper-rewarding, effectively short-circuiting our innate brakes against over consumption, are NOT good.

3. Contain artificial ingredients

Dozens of additional chemicals that aren’t even listed on the label are present in packaged food.

Highly processed foods often contain:

Preservatives: Chemicals that prevent the food from rotting. Colorants: Chemicals that are used to give the food a specific color. Flavor: Chemicals that give the food a particular flavor. Textural: Chemicals that give a particular texture.

4. People can become addicted to junk food

For many employees, junk foods can hijack the biochemistry of the brain, leading to downright addiction and cause them to lose control over their consumption.

5. Often high in refined carbohydrates

Carbohydrates from whole foods are much better than refined carbohydrates. Not surprisingly, eating a lot of refined carbohydrates is associated with negative health effects and many chronic diseases

6. Low in nutrients

Processed foods are extremely low in essential nutrients compared to the whole, unprocessed foods. Synthetic nutrients are NOT a good replacement for the nutrients found in whole foods.

Also, let’s not forget that real foods contain much more than just the standard vitamins and minerals that we’re all familiar with.

7. Low in fiber

Soluble, ferment-able fiber has various important health benefits, but most processed foods are very low in fiber because it is lost or intentionally removed during processing.

8. Require less time and energy to digest

Food manufacturers want their processed food products to have a long shelf life. We only burn half as many calories digesting and metabolizing processed foods compared to whole foods.

9. Often high in trans fats

Processed foods are often high in unhealthy fats.

They usually contain cheap fats, refined seed- and vegetable oils (like soybean oil) that are often hydrogenated which turns them into trans fats.

These fats contain excessive amounts of Omega-6 fatty acids, which can drive oxidation and inflammation in the body.

Thus, we assume that you must have now been wary of the risks associated with processed food. We would be grateful if you share this piece of information with your employees and control the aggravating situation.

Awaiting the FSSAI News??? Well, this week’s FSSAI News is definitely going to benefit the FBOs, Corporate entities, and Individuals. So, better not miss a chance to go through the news and have a merrier week ahead!!!

FSSAI News 1: FSSAI has issued drafts to reduce the limit of trans-fat in edible oils.

FSSAI has reduced the permissible limit of trans-fat content in edible oils below the current limit of five percent. This initiative is inspired by the WHO which is working for attaining a trans-fat free world by 2023.

FSSAI is on a mission to achieve it by 2022 itself in the 75th year of Independence. Also, considering the scientific and medical opinions, FSSAI would further decide whether to reduce the level or not.

FSSAI News 2: FSSAI has launched the Experience Zone for the consumers to know more about FSSAI journey and its reforms.

Experience Zone- A one of its kind initiative by FSSAI that landscapes India’s food safety ecosystem, has been launched. The 360-degree experience zone explains the shifts made by FSSAI in so many years and enabling various regulations and changes. The consumers visiting this place, situated in New Delhi at the FSSAI headquarters, will get a chance to see the food value chain, system and the processes. A Web portal has been developed where citizens can take a digital tour of the Experience Zone and allows users to pre-book a visit. It will also remain open for all the school children to empower them on food safety at an early age.

FSSAI News 3: FSSAI will be giving more importance to food safety as compared to documentation and licensing 

FSSAI has decided to rework on the licensing and registration under the FSSA, which will give more importance to the food safety compliance instead of just the documentation part. The first step that FSSAI would do is recategorize the FBOs according to the annual turnover to lower the bar from entry into the food ecosystem. According to FSSAI News, three categories have been defined for licensing on the basis of FBOs turnover. While Level A (for FBOs whose turnover is between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 5 crore) and Level B (for FBOs whose turnover is between Rs 5 crore and Rs 75 crore) licenses will be issued by the state licensing authorities, the third category (Level C) is for FBOs whose turnover is over Rs 75 crore, and their licenses will be issued by the Central licensing authority. Further on, registrations will be issued for a period of five years and licenses for three years.

FSSAI News 4: FSSAI has come up with the Orange book for the corporate companies to assist on food safety

FSSAI has launched the SNF@Workplace initiative (safe and nutritious food at the workplace) today. This idea has put across to curb the increasing non-communicable disorders and obesity among the employees. A majority of employees who rely on corporate canteens for their regular meals have to assured of food safety and hygiene. To aid workplaces and build a policy framework, FSSAI has also released The Orange book: Your Guide To Safe and Nutritious Food at the workplace. This sets down the role of stakeholders such as the administration, canteen, establishment and the employees at a workplace in ensuring safe food.

The above FSSAI News has absolutely made the work a little easier to the customers and FBO businesses. The initiative of Orange Book and Experience Zone is an imperative one. Immediate actions should be taken to seek productivity and efficiency.