Webinar on food safety measures

Sonepat, June 9

On the occasion of World Food Safety Day, National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM), Kundli, organised a webinar on ‘Protective Efforts and Rapid Food Emergency Control and Testing’.

During the inaugural address, Dr Harinder Singh Oberoi, director of the institute, provided an overview of the recent food safety concerns in the country. He added that the theme of the World Food Safety Day was ‘Food Safety: Prepare for the Unexpected’.

Dr Oberoi referred to the increased incidents of food-borne illnesses and deaths as reported by WHO. He highlighted the fact that rapid methods for detection of not only food-borne pathogens, but also contaminants like pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, bacterial toxins, acrylamides, etc are the need of the hour.

Welcoming the panellists and participants, Dr Oberoi stressed that integrating good agricultural and post-harvest practices can help in mitigating the food-borne risks and ensure safety of the final food products.

The keynote speaker Dr Iddya Karunasagar (International Food Safety Consultant to FAO, WHO and ADB) and Senior Director (International Relations), NITTE University, Mangalore, stressed upon the need to be prepared to investigate and control food-borne illnesses and outbreaks. He stated that mock exercises are required to sensitise the agencies at all levels to make them ready with mitigation strategies for future outbreaks.

Dr Amit Sharma, Director, Food Safety, FSSAI, acknowledged the importance of food safety and underlined the need for collaboration between the government and institutes like NIFTEM, ICMR, and ICAR to work together for detection and prevention of food-borne outbreaks in the country.