CII meet stresses quality aspects

Awareness about quality standards is the need of the hour for food-processing industries, said Atul Mehra, managing director, Tasty Dairies Specialties, while addressing the participants at the training programme on Food Safety Management Systems and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Kanpur.

This apart, specifications of national, international standards; food safety hygiene and imparting education/training on issues related to food safety and regulation were needed, he said.

"The majority of the food-processing industries in Uttar Pradesh are small-scale and are neither well-equipped with modern food-processing technology nor have the knowledge of the efficient use of these machinery and equipments," said Mehra.

He further stated that the importance of food safety management and HACCP was growing in the country due to increased awareness created on the subject by the WTO agreement on Sanitary and PhytoSanitary measures (SPS).

CEO and Principal Counselor of Quality Professional Group Avinit Singh, made a presentation on Food Hygiene and HACCP Systems. Singh emphasised on the relevance of food safety, good hygiene practices (GHP), food safety hazards and controls, HACCP and ISO 22000 for the food processing industry in today's environment.

He also discussed the general guidelines of GHP for the food chain and also covered related topics like specific code of hygiene practice and guidelines on microbiological criteria.

Singh concluded the training programme by explaining in detail the principals, implementation, impacts, opportunities and pitfalls of the HACCP System.

The objective of the programme, organised by CII in association with the Export Promotion Bureau, was to foster an understanding and sharing of food safety, quality, manufacturing and business improvement methodologies among the food processing industries in Uttar Pradesh.