FSSAI orders confectioners to use safe ingredients for festive sales

New Delhi: Ahead of festivals, the Food Safety Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) has directed sweet manufacturers to follow FSSAI guidelines, follow good manufacturing practices and purchase raw materials like milk, khoya and paneer from licensed vendors in FSSAI lists. The idea is to lower the risk of food adulteration commonly found in sweets during festivals.

“Around 150 sweet manufacturers and associations attended the meeting held at FSSAI and directed them to ensure safety and good quality of edibles and raw materials especially milk and its products which are more susceptible to adulteration and contamination due to its high demand. All the participants were sensitized to follow good standard of hygiene at all the tough points such as-manufacturing, storage, distribution, area of sale and purchase to the consumer,” said the FSSAI official aware of the matter.

Furthermore, it was also directed to them to follow safe cooking practice and use of good quality of eligible oil and ghee in food items.

“Besides this, FSSAI has planned to conduct country-wide surveillance on milk and its products to ascertain the adulteration in milk and its products. The samples will be picked from both organized and unorganized sectors across the country,” added the official.

Last year, the food regulator 1,72,687 food samples out of which 44,421 food samples were found non-conforming to the FSSAI’s standard. The regulator has imposed 38,053 civil cases and 4,817 criminal cases.

In August, Mansukh Mandaviya, union health minister said that FSSAI formed a team along with State Authorities to crackdown on those who indulge in such malpractices and food adulteration.

in 2022, FSSAI conducted milk survey in selected 12 States inclduing those 10 states where the Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) was prevalent & 2 States as control with no reported outbreak of LSD outbreak in cattle in India. The result concluded that the milk sold in the selected 12 States is largely safe for consumption.

Queries sent to the health ministry did not respond.