Food safety is shared responsibility: NIFTEM

On the occasion of World Food Safety Day, National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Kundli, (NIFTEM-K), organised a webinar on ‘Protective Efforts and Rapid Food Emergency Control and Testing’ (PERFECT). During the inaugural address, Dr Harinder Singh Oberoi, Director, NIFTEM-K, provided an overview of the recent food safety concerns in the country. He further emphasised that a consumer can afford to consume food that is not palatable or nutritious but cannot endanger his/her life by consuming unsafe food. While referring to the increased incidences of food-borne illness and deaths as reported by WHO, Dr Oberoi highlighted the fact that rapid methods for detection of not only food-borne pathogens, but also contaminants like pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, bacterial toxins, acrylamides, etc is the need of an hour. He also mentioned that in all the Bachelor and Master degree programmes at NIFTEM-K, management aspects are integrated with the food science and technology aspects. He also mentioned that some of the PhD students at the institute are working on emerging food safety problems, such as acrylamides, microplastics, DNA aptamer based Salmonella detection methods, mycotoxins and bacterial toxins, etc. Students at NIFTEM-K are exposed to programmes in Microbiology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Nanotechnology, Statistics, ICT, Management and Entrepreneurship, etc, besides practical exposure in the Pilot Plants which improve their understanding about food safety, quality and entrepreneurship.

The keynote speaker Dr Iddya Karunasagar (International Food Safety Consultant to FAO, WHO and ADB) and Senior Director (International Relations) NITTE University, Mangalore, touched upon the challenges and necessary actions for managing food borne outbreaks. Dr Karunsagar stressed upon the need to be prepared to investigate and control the food-borne illnesses and outbreaks. He stated that mock exercises are required to sensitise the agencies at all levels to make them ready with mitigation strategies for future outbreaks.

Dr Amit Sharma, Director- Food Safety, FSSAI, acknowledged the importance of food safety and underlined the need for collaboration between the government and academia, like NIFTEM, ICMR, ICAR etc. to work together for detection and prevention of food borne outbreaks in the country. Naresh Kumar, Application Specialist, Biomerieux, highlighted about the cumbersome and time consuming procedures for microbiological testing as the biggest challenge in ensuring food safety. Dr Kathiravan Krishnamuthy Associate Teaching Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA accentuated the application of novel non-thermal techniques to combat spoilage with the retention of the nutritive value and sensory properties of the treated food. Dr Neetu Taneja, Assistant Professor at NIFTEM-K, outlined her team’s research on biofilm formation by microorganisms like E. coli and Salmonella, emphasizing its role in enhancing their long-term survival. She presented findings on the prevalence of food-borne pathogenic strains in Indian dairy and meat products, advocating for improved food hygiene practices to mitigate biofilm ingestion, and discussed interventions using phytochemicals which can help in mitigating incidences of food borne pathogens.

Dr P Murali Krishna, Professor, NIFTEM-K touched upon the development of nanosensors for on-site food safety detection applications and also upon the role of IoT and electronics in food safety. Dr Sarvanan Chakravarthi, Assistant Professor, NIFTEM-K discussed about the work done for the food contamination mitigation by his group, especially with reference to acrylamide detection in different fried and baked foods and the methods to reduce and eliminate them. The webinar ended with a statement that food safety is a shared responsibility and all should work together to ensure safe food.