FSSAI seeks to ‘harmonise’ Indian tea quality standards at domestic & int’l levels

Kolkata: Amid reports that exported tea consignments from India are facing rejections due to alleged failure to meet international quality standards, G Kamala Vardhana Rao, CEO, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said the rejections are rare and that the organisation is in talks with tea industry stakeholders for “harmonising” quality standards.

The FSSAI recently met the stakeholders of the tea industry at Tea Board of India headquarters in the city. Rao later told the reporters in Kolkata that FSSAI recently conducted a survey on tea quality but its report is yet to be analysed. He said the organisation has 21 scientific panels with more than 200 scientists working on checking quality standards of food items. A separate panel is dedicated to tea.

‘We are trying to harmonise quality standards at the Codex Alimentarius Commission level. About 180 countries are part of it. Every country has set their own limits on food quality standards. FSSAI regularly collects samples for testing,’ he remarked.

Asked if it’s true that many food export consignments from India are getting rejected, he rebutted saying India is fortunate that its exporters face the least number of rejections compared to some other countries. ‘We keep checking whether tea growers, merchants and exporters are meeting FSSAI standards. The Tea Board is also working with them to ensure quality standards are met. We discussed with the tea industry stakeholders on how to further improve,’ he said. Commenting on whether tea exporters have on the contrary suggested relaxation of “stringent” standards, Rao denied and said that tea exporters have also expressed the need for harmonisation.

He said that FSSAI is augmenting its testing infrastructure wherein it has introduced at least 220 mobile testing labs, apart from its existing 247 NABL accredited laboratories.