Sattvik Council of India, the vegetarian food safety and regulatory compliance for vegetarian and allied adherents; launched the Sattvik Council Certification scheme and inaugurated the Sattvik hospitality manual in association with its Global Audit Partner – Bureau Veritas at the India International Centre, New Delhi.

The scheme's main objective is to render a "Vegetarian Environment" for the vegetarian or vegan consumers of India and global markets by creating SOPs in all applicable areas having the potential for a guaranteed 100% vegetarian environment.

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

According to the press note, 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 public health.

The scheme will open the gateway for increased market access while mitigating the business risks; likewise, it will encourage the facilitation of international trade. The certificate will help in the reduction of production costs through reduced wastage and recall.

The launch was attended by Bhupinder Singh Hooda (ex-chief minister of Haryana), Santosh Gangwar (former union minister, Government of India, Member of Parliament, Bareilly). From Sattvik Council of India, Abhishek Biswas (founder), Vagish Pathak (chairman) and From Bureau Veritas, Amit Ghosh (senior vice president, CIF South Asia Region), Jagdheesh N Manian (Head South Asia Certification Business) were also present.

Appreciating the initiative, Hooda said, "I belong to a place where majority people are non-vegetarian but now a days people are turning to Veg. Being a nature lover, I always believed vegetarianism is all about nature. As I recall there was a myth, a few years back that non-Vegetarians are more powerful as compare to vegetarians and refers to goat and chicken who only eats veg. He also praised the Bureau Veritas and suggested that they take advantage of pandemic to promote vegetarian culture."

Gangwar and Saraswati also appreciated the efforts of the Sattvik Council of India and Bureau Veritas for the association.

Amit Ghosh, senior vice president, CIF South Asia Region, Bureau Veritas said, "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."

Abhishek Biswas, founder of Sattvik Council of India, said, "Through the scheme we want to practice responsible food processing through reduced emissions and lower Carbon footprint. Likewise, we also want to instill confidence in the quality of food amongst the food suppliers as well as the consumers." Concluding the event, we are looking forward to associating restaurants around the globe for Certification, specially the vegetarian restaurants and praised the hard work of Sattvik teams and trustees, he added.