Leading millers today asked food regulator FSSAI to develop a standard operating procedure to tackle the issue of circulation of malicious videos related to the food industry which may plague consumers trust.
The millers sought a proactive role of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India in this regard and industry body FICCI would help develop a mechanism to tackle such issues.
"FSSAI should also realise that this can become tomorrow with any other food category and therefore we are making a request to them to have create an SoP," said ITC Foods Divisional Chief Executive Hemant Malik.
He further said: "If such thing happens then what would be the instant reaction. You have to learn from every episode. There should be a method for tackling it faster. The industry would engage with FSSAI on this."
Recently videos have been surfaced claiming that plastic powder was being mixed in the branded flour.
Item being termed as plastic in the videos was actually wheat protein namely gluten, said Malik, who was here to participate in a panel discussion 'Packaged Wheat Flour: Myth & Reality' organised by industry body FICCI.
Besides ITC, other major companies such as Cargill India, Modern Flour Mill, Laxmi Bhog, Victoria Foods along with Flour Millers Association also participated in the panel discussions.
"The rumours of plastic in atta are completely false and are an attempt to mislead the general public. It is the Gluten protein which is found naturally in wheat that gives elasticity to the dough and helps making chapattis and bread," said Ratan Gupta, Past President, Roller Flour Millers Federation of India.
According to the standards prescribed for Atta under Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, mandates that Atta or wheat flour must contain no less than 6 per cent of gluten (wheat protein).
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