Question 1 · 10 marks · 151 words written
How is the rapid growth of the food processing industry leading to food safety challenges in India?
Opening
Indian food processing industry is growing at more than 10% growth rate as sunshine industry.
ways by which the rapid growth of this leading to food safety challenges
Body · points
(1) Adulteration of foods → due to inter-mixing of chemicals. eg. causing food poisioning.
(2) Recent report by FSSAI indicated 12% indian spices failed to meet the quality standards.
(3) Junk food booming → that leads to lifestyle diseases. eg: Diabetes, over-weights etc.
(4) Lack of nutritional foods → due to proportion of soft drinks.
(5) Environmental pollution → due to plastic packaging and no "polluter pay principle" implementation. eg: NO EPR
(6) Informal sectors → as 90% of the MSMEs are informal, that avoids the regulatory control.
(7) Lack of testing facilities → leading to no check on food fortification in proper ratios. eg: rice (Vitamin B12, folic acid)
Close · a way forward
Thus, FSSAI needs to invest on infrastructure to keep proper checks on food-adulteration.