Industry does not want to be regulated; Just wants to make money: Dave

Thursday, September 25, 2014 08:00 IST,
Abhitash Singh, Mumbai

Sanjay Dave, chairman, Codex Alimentarius Commission, and advisor, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), said that self-regulation was the need of the hour for the food industry, and warned that it wouldn’t be able to do so because it didn’t want to be regulated, but was keener to make money.


He was speaking at the sixth National Food Research and Development (R&D) seminar, organised in Mumbai on Wednesday by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), in association with FSSAI and the ministry of food processing industries (MoFPI).

One of the topics discussed at the meet, which was attended by representatives of the industry, the government, the regulators and consumer bodies, was food safety and the need for the industry, the government and the regulators to work in tandem for the benefit of the consumers, who were, after all, at the receiving end.

“The new challenges that are cropping up are unknown to the industry. So, they remain unaddressed, and this, in turn, leads to issues that concern the health of the consumers,” Dave stated, urging not only FSSAI, but also other sectors of the food business, including exporters, to work closely with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).    

He added, “Implementing good agriculture practices is also very important. There are also continuous deliberations by the Codex Alimentarius Commission on the likely effects of climate change in India. Codex always thinks about these issues and takes them into consideration.”

“We need to know of consumer choices. The ministries of food processing industries; agriculture; food, consumer affairs and public distribution system, commerce and health, and FSSAI have to work in synergy to encourage scientists to come up with many more innovations and also regulations,” Dave stated. 

“Harmonisation is going to complete in the middle of October, and it would be going to the scientific committee for approval. We are following science and implementing science-based standards for the safety of food,” he added.

“A number of other issues related to the food safety were discussed by the experts, representative of the government, FSSAI representatives and consumer forum representatives,” Dave said.

There were discussion on various topics such as safe food and Better Business: Two Sides of a Coin.

The panellists included Dr J J Lewis, member of scientific panel for labelling and claims/advertisements (who spoke about ‘Dimension of Food Safety: Evolving with Science’); Sanjay Sharma, chief executive officer, MTR Foods (who spoke on ‘Diversity in Business: Traversing Food Safety’), and Prakash Sanghavi of the Food Ingredient Manufacturers and Suppliers Association of India (who spoke about ‘Converging Choice and Safety through Horizontal Standards’). The topic was chaired by Anuradha Prasad, joint secretary, MoFPI.

The topic on ‘Food Safety Net: Where does India stand’ was chaired by Dave. The panellists included Dr Roger Bektash, director, scientific affairs, Australia and Asia, Mars (who spoke about ‘Building Blocks of Response Mechanism to Global Interactions); Dr Sitaram Dixit, chairman, Consumer Guidance Society of India (who spoke about the lessons learned from food safety outbreaks), and Dr Sangeeta Sharma, senior surgeon, poultry research and farm, Government of Madhya Pradesh (who spoke about the National Food Safety Grid).

The last topic of the event was Food Safety: Linking Consumer, Processes and Markets. It was chaired by Dr Bektash, and the panellists included Tejas Bhatt, director, Global Traceability Centre, Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), United States (who spoke about the Challenge to Track my Food: Global Supply Chain); Ramakrishnan Narasimhan, registrar’s director, UL, USA (who spoke about ‘Mending Single Road for Different Countries: Certification Standards), and Bejon Misra from Consumer Voice (who spoke about ‘Challenges in Managing Food Recall: An Indian Scenario’).

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USDA: Online retail for food and grocery to soar in India

By Andrew Schreiber, 23-Sep-2014

India’s online retail market for food and groceries is set to soar thanks to growing internet and smartphone penetration, a new report by the US Department of Agriculture has revealed.

According to the report, growth in India’s online food and grocery retailing segment is a function of the rise in total internet users from 120m to 213m in the past year, a fall in mobile handset prices and a rise in smartphone penetration.

Online food and grocery retailing sites have increased from 14 in 2013 to 44 as of September 2014, targeting younger and professional population segments.

Target Audience

The report pointed out that Indian consumers are overcoming biases against purchasing items without prior inspection and the safety of automated online transactions.

“This shifting tendency is brought about by competitive pricing and the convenience of shopping for groceries from the comfort of one’s own home.

“Consumers are seeing that online retail provides some benefits over going to independent small grocers or store-based retailers’ outlets,” the report said.

In addition, the availability of multiple payment methodologies such as online banking, credit cards, debit cards and cash-on-delivery have meant that it is convenient for urban Indian consumers to shop online while saving both time and money, it added.

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Vikram Bakshi offers to sell 50% equity in McDonald's JV for Rs 2500 crore

By Ratna Bhushan | 22 September 2014, 7:07 AM IST

NEW DELHI: McDonald's estranged joint venture partner Vikram Bakshi has offered to sell his 50% equity in the joint venture firm Connaught Plaza Restaurants, back to the US burger and fries chain for Rs 2,500 crore and put an end to their legal tussle, two people aware of the developments said.
"The valuation of Rs 2,500 crore is market-related. Bakshi wants to use the stock market value of Westlife Development, which runs McDonald's outlets in the west and south through its subsidiary Hardcastle Restaurants, as a benchmark if he were to finally exit the joint venture," one of them said. "The valuation of Westlife is around Rs 5,000 crore, so 50% of CPRL (Connaught Plaza Restaurants) would be Rs 2,500 crore, given that the businesses are largely the same."

This person said that even if McDonald doesn't agree to pay Rs 2,500 crore, discussions may lead to an amount that could be 20% lower. CPRL operates McDonald's outlets in north and east India.

The other official said Bakshi has informally communicated the valuation to McDonald's.

The offer to exit was also communicated during the ongoing Company Law Board proceedings between the two, where Bakshi alleged that the US major did not treat him equally while giving preferential treatment to its other partner in India Westlife.

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Labelling norms hit hotel menus

By Amin Ali & Jayashree Nandi | 21 September 2014, 12:45 PM IST

NEW DELHI: New instructions from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on labelling of imported food and alcohol have sent city hoteliers 
and restaurateurs into a tizzy.

Consignments of black olives, a few brands of olive oil, a popular Swiss chocolate brand, a number of gluten-free products, nachos, Southeast Asian sauces and noodles, certain wines, beer and scotch whisky have either been rejected or stalled at various ports causing massive financial loss. If this continues, Delhi's dreams of becoming the gourmet capital may soon end, say chefs.

An FSSAI notification in July on alcoholic beverages, for instance, mandates that except for single ingredient products, all products are required to display the list of ingredients on their label, they also have to mention the manufacturing and expiry date for each product. This is often not the norm in the countries from where alcohol is imported. A similar notification was also released for canola or rapeseed oil. Restaurant owners claim that because of such guidelines, chefs have to opt for 'inferior-quality' ingredients available locally while their imports continue to rot at ports.

Between January 2014 and June 2014, as many as 165 imported consignments were rejected at the Delhi airport mainly due to "non rectifiable labelling defects" and "non submission of product approval certificate". In total 981 consignments were rejected in ports across the country with a majority due to labelling issues, according to FSSAI's data. FSSAI officials, however, refused to comment. "We are going by our notifications. All details are on the website," said B G Pandian, assistant director (imports) at FSSAI.

Meanwhile, gourmet outlets say import delays are bad news ahead of the festive season. "The worst is the restriction on Swiss chocolate as it is in huge demand during the festive season. Gluten-free products are also becoming popular in India because of health reasons but now most of them have been stopped. For olive oil and sauces, we usually suggest alternatives," said an employee of Nature's Basket, a grocery store that stocks exotic ingredients and foods. Citing the guidelines, he said that the manufacturing date, expiry date and maximum retail price of a product should be mentioned by the manufacturer on its label. A label pasted by the importer won't help, he added.

At the INA market, many of these products were unavailable. "When they are not being imported, what can we do? We can only offer alternatives," said Gulshan Luthra, a shopkeeper.

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Amul MD Dr K Rathnam on the group's growth agenda

Amul eyes growth at home and abroad

By Poorna Rodrigo 2,Sept 2014 | 2 September 2014

Indian dairy giant Amul is gearing up for growth. The company is preparing a push into the value-added nutraceuticals sector in India while, further afield, the co-operative intends to expand in the US and start manufacturing in Europe and Singapore by early 2016. Newly-appointed managing director Dr K Rathnam speaks to just-food about Amul's future.

just-food: Upon your appointment as managing director, Amul said your focus is going to be "new technology, establishing start-ups abroad and new products". Could you elaborate what action will be taken?

Dr K Rathnam: Where new technology is concerned, I am planning to recover excess proteins from skimmed milk. Fractionation of proteins for higher bio-availability formulations, technological development for lactoferrin isolation and introducing the latest technologic processes in cheese processing are just a few [projects] to name.

When it comes to new products, we are working on developing nutraceutical products - low-cost nutritional products for malnourished children, value added products. We are also hoping to expand the bakery products line.

Establishing start-ups abroad is another area I am looking at. We have already established a contract manufacturing unit in the USA for the manufacturing and marketing of Amul products in USA and other countries. A similar kind of mechanism would be set up in Europe, Singapore.

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Coca-Cola to buy 16.7% stake in Monster Beverage

Reuters | 15 August 2014, 1:45 PM IST

NEW YORK: Cola Co. said Thursday that it is buying a 16.7 percent stake in Monster Beverage Corp and will have two directors on Monster's board as the beverage company seeks to expand into faster-growing categories like energy drinks.

Under the agreement, Coke will make a cash payment of $2.15 billion and transfer ownership of its worldwide energy business including NOS, Full Throttle and Burn, to Monster. Monster will issue to Coke shares of common stock, and transfer its non-energy business, which includes Hansen's Natural Sodas and Peace Tea, to Coke. Coke will become Monster's preferred distribution partner globally, while Monster will become Coke's exclusive energy drinks partner.

The transaction is expected to close late in 2014 or early in 2015.

"Our equity investment in Monster is a capital-efficient way to bolster our participation in the fast-growing and attractive global energy drinks category," said Coke Chief Executive Officer Muhtar Kent.

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FMCG majors like GSK, Coca-Cola India and others join hands to push FSSAI on speedy approvals

By Ratna Bhushan | 14 August 2014, 8:20 AM IST


NEW DELHI: The heads of a bunch of food companies met the food safety regulator last week, in what seemed like high-level lobbying aimed at settling issues that delay product approvals and lead to skirmishes between the firms and authorities.

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare managing director Zubair Ahmed, Coca-Cola India President Venkatesh Kini, Kellogg MD Sangeeta Pendurkar, Cargill India MD Siraj Chaudhry, Mother Dairy MD S Nagarajan, Ferrero Group India head Luigi Oddone and McCain Foods MD Vikas Mittal were part of the delegation that met Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) chairman K Chandramouli and other officials.

The meeting that saw so many heads of companies coming together indicates the importance of product approvals for these companies at a time when they are seeing signs of a turnaround in the market after a two-year slump.

The meeting was kept under wraps until now, with the companies unwilling to discuss the topic on record because of the sensitivity of matters over food regulations and product approvals. Chandramouli confirmed the meeting.

"It was an exchange of ideas and information ... everyone of them had suggestions and points of view. I had not met many of the CEOs earlier, so they came to meet me. Product approval was one of the issues discussed," he told ET.

Usually, the corporate affairs representatives of these firms meet FSSAI officials to settle issues.

"We are implementing the food safety standards on a huge scale for the first time in the country. It is a big challenge and there are also litigations, but ultimately, it is for the benefit of the consumer," he said, explaining the reasons for delayed approvals.

One of the officials with direct knowledge of the discussions said while various aspects were discussed, emphasis was on allowing the companies to quickly take their new products to the market.

"The India heads also wanted to assure FSSAI that they are aligned with the food regulator in addressing food safety and quality," this person said.

"There's an urgent need for quick approvals at a time when product innovation gives a huge competitive edge," another official said. "A lot of investment goes in research and development, which companies want to fast track, but are stuck at the regulator because clearances are taking too long."

The relationship between food and drug firms and FSSAI hasn't always been smooth, with frequent conflicts over new product approval as well as imports and new labelling rules.

In April this year, FSSAI blocked a consignment of syrups meant for Tata Starbucks, which led the coffee chain to approach the Bombay High Court for relief.


Last year, on the eve of Diwali, consignments of leading gourmet chocolate importers such as Mars, Godiva, Guylian and Lindt were stopped by the regulator.


FSSAI had said the imported products didn't contain India-specific labeling, and that the importers had merely pasted local stickers on products that were supposed to sell in overseas markets.

Maharashtra-based Vital Nutraceuticals and the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association had filed a petition saying that FSSAI didn't have the power or authority to issue advisories as it amounted to amending regulations framed under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
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