As per reports in August 2019, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), has mandated food businesses involving certain high-risk categories to make third-party audits. The latest directive of the FSSAI is an effort to strengthen the food surveillance system by introducing the concept of food safety audits through recognised private agencies. Food businesses that hold central licences that involve dairy products, meat and meat products, eggs and egg products, besides fish and fish products, would be subject to ‘mandatory food safety auditing’. Also, central licence holders who manufacture food products for particular nutritional purposes such as infant products would be subject to mandatory food safety audits through recognised third-party agencies. The companies involved in prepared foods businesses, such as food catering, would also need to get their operations audited regularly.
In 2018, FSSAI had notified the food safety auditing regulations and, in early 2019, it recognised 24 private agencies as being eligible to conduct food safety audits of food companies. The private agencies are to inspect and audit food businesses and packaged food companies.
The food safety authority believes that satisfactory audits would reduce workload; it would lead to less frequent regulatory inspections by the central and state licensing authorities, except for regulatory sampling, thus encouraging a culture of self-compliance among the food business ecosystem.
The food safety audits of nearly 486 government-licensed slaughterhouses is already underway.