With the theme of Quality, Innovation & Safety, the 6th Annual India Food Safety Summit and Awards 2022 successfully concluded on 16 December 2022.

The event took place at Hotel Vivanta by Taj, Dwarka, New Delhi, from December 15 to 16, 2022. The concluding day of the India Food Safety Summit and Awards saw a series of enlightening back and forth between panelists, intriguing corporate presentations, and awards presented to the key changemakers in the food industry. The two-day event imparted education to the audience and brought key food safety issues and solutions to the forefront. It also facilitated business and networking sessions and provided a platform for seasoned and budding businesses to share their opinions, consolidated under one roof.

The second day of the event included panel discussions on topics related to the assessment of different kinds of hazards, innovative ways to enhance food safety, insights into manufacturing 4.0, food integrity, and an award session at the end.

Biological, chemical, and physical hazards assessed with HACCP

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is an important step towards ensuring food safety through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement, and handling, to manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of the finished product. The honored group of panelists who voiced their opinions on this topic included Krishna Kumar Joshi, regulatory head- of food, ITC, Uday Manikandan, director- of quality assurance, Licious, Jagdish Pant, general manager-CQA, Olive Lifesciences, Alpesh Jain,head-Dudhmansagar Dairy, Mehsana District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (Amul Group), Dr.Kriti Soni, head R&D, Kapiva Ayurveda, Dr. Naveen Dhanda, director, JSBS Foods, and Biswajit Dutta, chief quality officer, Mother Dairy Fruit, and Vegetable. The session was moderated by Deshraj Sharma, head of quality- India, Ferrero India.

The panelists shared their opinions on topics such as the techniques used for food hazards and HACCP and microbiological hazards, implementation of the latest techniques in HACCP as well as Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC). Also discussed were bacterial hazards, a comparison between HACCP and HARPC, and ways to integrate HARPC regulations with the existing HACCP.

Corporate presentation- Innovative Approaches to Advance your Food Safety Goals

Sudip Chatterjee, application manager, of Eco Lab presented a talk on the ways by which companies can get closer to achieving their food safety goals. Discussing ways to enhance food safety in the production area, he said that to control mold growth, proper cleaning and sanitation of the food contact surface need to be done to ensure there is no cross-contamination. However, the surrounding air in the production area needs to be sanitized as well. He said, “The air should remain sanitized and microbial contamination should be under control.”

Smart Manufacturing 4.0: An insight into Food Manufacturing Industry

The next session focused on topics related to smart manufacturing such as using the latest technology to improve the food safety of the plant, the use of IoT and artificial intelligence in the food manufacturing industries, the present and future of smart manufacturing, food traceability, plant digitization, and so on.

The luminaries gracing the panel discussion included Anil Bhutani, head of manufacturing, Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable, Kumar Tarun, deputy general manager, Guiltfree Industries, Devendra Yadav, corporate head of quality food safety and regulatory, Jubilant Foodworks, Rakesh Matai, deputy general manager, Havmor Ice Cream, Sanjeev Sharma, director quality assurance, PepsiCo, and Pankaj Agarwal, chief operating officer, Bikanervala Foods. Moderating the session was Arvind Kakru, director of Rockwell Automation India. Some key opinions shared in the discussion are as follows.

“With the help of digitalization there will be more data, and we will have a very effective maintenance system, controlled process control operation, intelligent machines which come with smart sensors, sensors and deliver a consistent quality product with a low inventory.”- Pankaj Agarwal

“Just like for a human being you need oxygen to survive, for manufacturing you need good food safety to survive. Our industry is working with suppliers who are supplying us with packaging materials and raw materials to improve the food safety standard.” -Anil Bhutani

The panel discussion was followed by a presentation on the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in foods by Uday Ramesh Prabhu, sales manager and applications scientist, Bruker Scientific India, Bruker. He discussed how the NMR technique is a quantitative method that can be used to measure the total quantity of organic acids and sugars which are then compared with the data.

Food Integrity- Ensuring the Authenticity of Food & Preventing Fraud

The next panel discussion focused on the food adulteration problem in India, new analytical approaches for food integrity, examples of food fraud, the application of real-time PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) in food authentication analysis, and chromatographic and spectrometric authentication assuring food safety. Opinions were also shared on the ways to prevent and manage food fraud across the entire value chain and the steps that can be taken to build and maintain trust between supply networks.

The eminent dignitaries taking part in the panel were Krishna Kumar Joshi, head of regulatory- food, ITC, Abir Mukherjee, chief technical officer, Alpha Milkfoods, Vinod Kumar Kaul, executive director, AIREA (All India Rice Exporters Association), Deepak Kumar Sharma, head-operations, DS Group, Dr. Chetan Mehndiratta, head medical affairs, Signutra and Dr. Neerja Hajela, head science and regulatory and Yakult Danone India. The session was moderated by Pradip Kundu, head of quality, at Dabur India. Some remarks made at the discussion are mentioned below.

“Molecular level knowledge of techniques such as CO2 extraction and blockchain technologies can help address food fraud.”- Krishna Kumar Joshi

“Fraud is going to persist until we can wipe it out legally. Traceability has to be displayed to the consumer.” - Abir Mukherjee

Corporate presentation- Importance of humidity control in the food industry

Dhirendra Chaudhry, chief executive officer, of Bry Air Asia displayed a presentation on why humidity is a factor that needs to be controlled in the food industry. He said, “The idea is to reduce the water content in the air to ensure that the process is run efficiently and produces the right kind of product quality.” He talked about some typical problems in food drying, processing, packaging, and storage. These included product spoilage due to drying at high temperatures (onions, cardamoms), lumping or caking of powder foods (cocoa, milk powder), and loss of freshness and crispness (wafer, candy).

The Next-Generation F & B Industry: Resilient, Efficient & Sustainable

The next session emphasized topics like food system transformation in India, progress, and updates on regulatory framework and policies, changing consumers’ tastes and preferences, how regulators are working with the industry to ensure an orderly rollout of new initiatives and standards, and unique challenges in the food industry versus how they were 10-20 years ago. Some opinions shared were that health and taste will have to coexist for consumer satisfaction. Also, it is important that the animals used for milk production are stress-free, and can eat and drink at their own will. This will reduce stress on the animal and give better quality milk and make the process more sustainable.

The session was graced by inputs from food industry experts that included Dr. Rajeev Tyagi, head of R&D, Tropilite Foods, Manish Singh, quality, regulatory, and compliance advisor- Fonterra South East Asia, Fonterra future dairy, Radhey Shyam Dixit, chief managing director, Ananda Dairy, Karan Singh, director, Rattan Organic Foods, Vishal Rastogi, director, Happy Nature, Dr. K Rathnam, chief executive director, Milky Mist, and Navneet Mehta, global quality director-food and refreshment, Unilever. Dharminder Bhalla, chief executive officer, of Govind Milk, and Milk Products moderate the event with the panelists. A few remarks made at the session are listed below.

Award ceremony

To encourage and appreciate the key changemakers in the field of food safety, an award session took place at the end of the summit. A total of 29 award categories were presented to deserving organizations. Some of the notable award recipients and their categories are listed below.

Tropilite Foods – 2 awards- Ingredient company of the year and Probiotics product company of the year

 ITC – 2 awards- Beverage company of the year and Functional Foods company of the year

Ingex Botanicals- Rising star company of the year

Hindustan Unilever- Technology innovator food company of the year

Dodla Dairy – Dairy company of the year

Dabur India- Consumer healthcare company of the year

Indus Viva Health sciences- Best consumer satisfaction company of the year

Ananda Dairy- Best dairy brand of the year

Olive Lifesciences- Nutraceuticals company of the year

Patanjali Foods-Food fortification initiative company of the year

D.S SpiceCo- Spices company of the year

The two-day summit involved 8+ hours of pure brainstorming, with 75+ speakers spreading light on 20+ key topics, 10+ presentation sessions, networking sessions, an exclusive CXO panel, exclusive technology sessions, and many more topics covered by food and beverage industry leaders.