Sattvik Council of India launches certification scheme for vegetarian products

INDIA – Sattvik Council of India, a food safety and regulatory compliance for vegetarian and allied adherents, has launched the Sattvik Council Certification scheme in association with its global audit Partner, Bureau Veritas, at the India International Centre, New Delhi. 

The main objective of the scheme is to render a ‘Vegetarian Environment’ for the vegetarian and vegan consumers of India and global markets by creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in all applicable areas having the potential for guaranteed 100% vegetarian environment.

The scheme entails plans to provide consistent safe vegetarian food supply, products and services that will meet the customer requirement along with the entire applicable statutory and regulatory requirement. It is aimed at improving the overall performance of the vegetarian food quality and food safety management systems for the consumers.

“Our certification is aimed at improving the overall performance of the vegetarian food quality and food safety management systems for the consumers. We are not into promoting vegetarianism. We are simply a standard provider, just like an ISO,” said Abhishek Biswas, founder of the Sattvik Council of India.

The Sattvik Council Certification scheme will reduce the risk of food borne diseases. Further, it will ensure enhanced consumer quality life both health wise and socio-economically by instilling confidence in the quality of their food. By initiating awareness around basic food hygiene, it will reduce the cost and improve the public health.

“This is an effort to formulate a concise set of requirements in the form of a management system standard to be used by organizations in the food value chain, covering all levels of food processors, manufacturers, restaurants, packaged food manufacturers, traders, dealers etc. for implementation of the requirements to be used by Bureau Veritas for evaluation of such organizations for conformance to the requirements and certify them,” Amit Ghosh, Senior VP, CIF South Asia Region

According to Hotelier India, the company which is operative in 170 countries, aims to certify approximately 1 million establishments, including kitchens, hotels, products and textiles by 2025.

FSSAI to conduct food products surveillance

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), has decided to conduct a pan-India surveillance of food products, to ascertain the quality of food products sold across the country.

According to the FSSAI, the pan-India surveillance of food products was needed to find out the extent of non-confirmation with respect to contaminants and adulterants adversely affecting the quality and safety of food products and to arrive at the root cause of the problem.

“It includes regular surveillance on variety of food products i.e. spices, jaggery, tea, vegetables, fruits etc.,” reads the FSSAI statement.

The country-wide survey will encompass big cities, districts, tehsils with an option to add-up to 25% more numbers of places.

The food regulator has also called upon bidders to apply for the analysis tenders setting the application deadline as October 21, 2021. FSSAI stated that the bids under the two-bid system, Technical Bid and Commercial Bid, should be submitted on the government’s e-procurement portal by the due date and time.

Following the award of tender, the draft report based on the lab analysis should be submitted within 35 days after the picking up of samples followed by the final report after submission of the draft report. FSSAI will then release the final report a week later.