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Need to address industry's agenda on food regulation
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Saturday, 20 October, 2007, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Ronita Torcato, Mumbai
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nformation of various sectors like production, consumption patterns, mandatory nutritional labeling, food safety standards and regulations must be our prime concerns, the Protein Foods and Nutrition Development Association of India (PFNDAI) underscored at its 39th annual general meeting and seminar on Food Ingredients for New Healthy Products held on October 14 in Mumbai.
PFNDAI is a professionally organised network of stakeholders committed to betterment of human nutrition; these include nutrition scientists, food technologists involved in research and development, the food industry, social scientists, governmental policy making bodies and regulatory authorities connected with the industry.
Executive director Dr J S Pai said PFNDAI has "interacted and continues to do so in formulating the new amendments in PFA Rules, the latest being Food Labeling. Our views were considered while making the amendments but still there were many lacunae left, so we held a workshop especially on the topic that attracted a large attendance from food and allied industry. Our suggestions will be sent to the ministry for considering the further amendments."
While PFNDAI's executive director Dr J S Pai elaborated on the forum's activities of seminars, workshops, educational programmes conducted in the year gone by and welcomed new members, CHR Hansen, Tate & Lyle, NutriFlavours, Flavouring Agro, Pravin Masalewala, CIPLA, Natural India Plc, the Maharashtra Draksha Bhagritdar Sangh and the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation.
Vice-chairperson Sanjog Surve of Heinz outlined future plans in the areas of regulatory affairs and nutrition. The on-going Food Survey apart, PFNDAI has "the opportunity to be pro-active in framing regulatory laws and be one step ahead of the government." It also has a very strong knowledge and database. In view of the overwhelming problem of malnutrition in sections of society, there was a huge need for good nutrition for all, especially deprived sections who needed it most. PFNDAI could be a pioneer in raising the quality of nutrition knowledge, Surve said.
The need to address the industry's agenda in food regulation in the next five years was underlined by Dr J I Lewis, General Manager - R&D, Marico Ltd, in exhorting superior standards of quality. Regretting that " we don't have a clear idea about food laws even though the new food law is expected next year - even the per capita consumption is not known," Dr Lewis stressed the need for market information from the food industry's varied sectors. "However, we should focus only on safety standards and regulations for most foods except for commodities like margarine and butter…When apples from the US and China arrive in the same pristine condition as local ones, Indian industry will not improve if it reacts with traditional methods," he said. Since the market always gives the first sign of where industry is headed, he suggested a formal survey of new products in the market to determine the number of those, which survive; abroad the ratio is two out of ten.
It may be noted in the circumstances that PFNDAI started a Product Endorsement Activity in 1999, mainly to assure the consumer about the nutritional contents of the product endorsed. As of writing, the products endorsed by PFNDAI include Annapurna Fortified Atta manufactured by Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Bournvita (mfgd Cadbury India Ltd ) Knorr Soups (a product from International Best Foods Ltd.) Resource ( Novartis Nutrition India Ltd.) and Sarvottam Lito (Instant Meal Pvt. Ltd., Nepal).
Dabur Foods have taken PFNDAI endorsement for three years for their Real range of fruit juices in various pack sizes. Another couple of companies have approached PFNDAI for the endorsement.
The seminar, which followed the official deliberations of the AGM, was addressed by Dr K D Yadav from Kamani Oil, India's first HACCP-certified vegetable oil refinery, Rohit Tipnis of DSM Nutritional Products and Abhijit Bhattacharya, CEO of Omni Active Health Technologies who made a presentation on Nutraceuticals for New Products (to be featured next week, for lack of space).
Speaking on "New Fats and Oils," Kamani's Dr K D Yadav said the company, which had some four decades of experience of processing oils, and fats had a wide range of products for specialised applications to the food industry as well as to homemakers to satisfy the nutritional and health needs of the family. Starting as a copra crushing company in 1962 Kamani currently processes about 65000 TPA. Their knowledge of the oil molecule helps them actively partner with customers' product development efforts to help improve their products and profitability.
The core focus of Dr Yadav's presentation was on fat, a naturally occurring substance -- an energy source in food - that plays an important role in nutrition. It is one of three main macronutrient groups that supply calories in food (the other two are protein and carbohydrate). Elaborating on the composition, Dr Yadav said fats and oils were made up of basic units called fatty acids. Saturated Fatty Acids (SAFA) were found mainly in animal sources such as meat and poultry, dairy fat, vegetable oils like coconut oil, palm kernel oil and palm oil.
The company also provides oils like mustard oil with its high levels of MUFA (Mono-Unsaturated Fatty Acid) and filtered coconut oil with its high oxidative stabilty. And accruing benefits of medium chain triglycerides (MCT) The clinical uses of these oils was in combating cystic fibrosis, and obesity among other illnesses.
Dr Yadav said a growing body of evidence indicates that foods rich in the omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid reduce the risk of myocardial infarction and fatal ischemic heart disease in women. In addition, other studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of alpha-linolenic acid on both coronary disease and mortality in patients with the disease.
Abhijit Bhattacharya, CEO of Omniactive Health Technologies (OmniActives) said his company's plants at Kodai, Thane, Pune and Kochi focused on " developing scientifically driven patented natural products and dietary supplements for health and nutrition." . "Food is the first frontier for the body's defense," he said. Accordingly, the company's R & D department carried out "the full analytical validation of processing and end products."
Omni manufactures the patent protected Lutemax range, the world's first, and only complete source of both Free Lutein and Lutein Esters for food fortification and dietary supplementation. The supply chain emanates from Omni's controlled farming of raw materials (mainly marigolds) to every finished batch of Lutemax products, he said.
Omni offers a range of advanced liquid delivery systems and proprietary ingredients options with Lutemax Free Lutein and Lutemax Lutein Esters oil suspensions for food applications, soft-gel and two-piece capsules.
Omni's parent company KANCOR Ingredients has been a manufacturer of premium ingredient for over 35-years with manufacturing facilities, which are ISO-9001: 2000, HACCP, Kosher, and Halal Certified, and GMP ready.
Addressing the audience on New Nutritionals, Rohit Tipnis of DSM Nutritional Products India Plc said that the company creates innovative products and services in life sciences and materials sciences, whose end markets include human and animal nutrition and health, personal care, pharmaceuticals, and life protection among other areas.
The Nutrition group consists of DSM Nutritional Products, DSM Food Specialties and
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