THE WorldBank IN INDIA Food regulator launches a food safety and health movement. States follow lead… If it’s not safe, it’s not food! If it’s not healthy, it’s not food! If it’s not sustainable, it’s not food! Eat Right India is a national program led by the Food Safety and Security Authority of India (FSSAI), to ensure safe, healthy and sustainable food for consumers across India. Lighthouse India is a World Bank initiative supporting systematic knowledge exchanges on good practices and innovations in development programmes across Indian states and with the world. Eat Right India: A 360-degree approach T he Eat Right campaign couldn’t have come at a better time. Diabetes and heart-related diseases have reached alarming levels in India. Undernutrition With growing threats to the environment, Eat Right India also has a strong sustainability push. For instance, its RUCO initiative in partnership with oil and nutritional deficiencies are still highly prevalent, companies and the Ministry of Petroleum, helps as are food-borne diseases. Managing diets and collect and convert used cooking oil to bio-diesel, lifestyle has now become critical. thus reducing unsafe consumption and creating sustainable fuel. Unique in many ways, the campaign is addressing demand by empowering consumers to eat food that is safe, healthy and holistic but also the supply side, by enabling industry to make hard choices to produce and sell healthier food and start-ups to innovate and find solutions in food testing, availability, labelling and recovery of any surplus. It’s catching children young, in schools, to inculcate health eating habits. It’s targeting campuses, workplaces, universities, hospitals and institutions to serve safe, healthy and sustainable food. And it’s training frontline health workers such as Angandwaadi (AWW) and ASHA workers on safe and healthy diets. These are among the many ways in which Eat Right Eat Right India is helping children inculcate healthy eating habits and ensuring food safety in schools India is trying to bring about mass behavioural, large- scale and transformative change. From food safety regulator to enabler: FSSAI P erhaps the most novel aspect of the movement is that for the first time a food regulator, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, has become “The conversation around food safety has changed. It used to be narrow and based on policing. But due to new ways of dealing with issues, people’s an enabler, by launching the campaign and integrating involvement and a sense of positive competition food safety, nutrition and the environment more among the states are the drivers,” said Pawan consciously and visibly into its work. Agarwal, CEO, FSSAI. “I’ve not seen a food safety regulator tackling lifestyle But FSSAI cannot mould the food habits and lifestyles and environment before. And nobody is doing it at the of 1.3 billion people alone. And so, it has taken scale that India is attempting,” said Donald Macrae, every possible stakeholder along – citizens, artists, Food Safety Consultant, World Bank. restaurants, media, food producers, corporates and development agencies. Over 50 mobile food-testing units are functional across the country for consumers. 2 The World Bank in India Passing the baton to states G oing forward, the leadership and active participation of states is crucial to the movement’s success. consumer interest groups and professional networks (NetProFaN), development partners (WHO) and the media. The international participants, mostly food “Now, it’s the state-level leadership and imple- regulators, brought in vital experience, too. mentation at the state and district levels that has to be stepped up. So, learning from each other will be important and critical,” said Ashi Kathuria, Senior Nutrition Specialist, World Bank, which is FSSAI’s technical partner. And so, over 200 stakeholders from more than 25 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and some 20 Indian states met in Goa on September 26, 2019, to learn from each other at a World-Bank supported knowledge exchange. The Indian delegates included state commissioners of Food Safety (CFS) and senior officials, The BHOG initiative is ensuring safety of “prasad” (devotional offering) representatives from the food industry, academia, and food served at places of worship. Fortifying food, reducing transfat T he day-long event kicked off with states sharing their experience of implementing Eat Right India initiatives. crucial to scaling up Eat Right India across schools, hospitals and workplaces. Reducing transfat, one of the main causes of Food fortification is a key focus of the campaign cardiovascular diseases, is another important issue to address micro-nutrient deficiencies. Chandigarh to tackle. Kerala shared how it is implementing shared how it has used government schemes “Trans-Free India” by training food business (ICDS and mid-day meal) to “fortify the staples” operators (FBOs), carrying out IEC campaigns and through concerted efforts by all line departments, ensuring support through government social and training and by streamlining supply. Resident welfare economic policies. associations and grassroots outreach has proved Food vendors: All hands on deck S treet food is a great attraction for city dwellers in many states of India. Small, independent FBOs, whether in the formal and informal sector, Maharashtra has similarly trained food providers at almost 250 places of worship under the BHOG initiative or Blissful Hygienic Offering to God. To help have an enormous impact on India’s food landscape. scale up the initiative in other states, it recommended Recognizing this, FSSAI has actively engaged with standardization of hygiene and sanitation standards, the entire spectrum, from vendors selling street licensing and registration of food providers and food to those supplying schools, campuses and onboarding of Mandir Samitis. institutions and places of worship, which millions of people visit each day. Gujarat, which set up the country’s first Clean Street Food Hub, shared how it first conducted a gap- analysis in hygiene and sanitation. Then, they trained and certified street food vendors through FSSAI’s FoSTaC initiative, a private sector-partnership effort that has helped train 155,000 food safety supervisors to increase compliance with hygienic food handling and standards. It was critical in setting up street food clusters in Gujarat along with the role of financially Clean Food Street Hubs are being set up all across the country as strong municipal corporations. part of Eat Right India The World Bank in India 3 Leveraging professional Building Eat Right networks, campuses and India’s leaders and the digital realm champions S o far, the Eat Right India movement appears to be spreading organically across many states. Even so, it needs to grow from states C apacity building, especially at the district level, is the next big need, said Vivian Hoffman, IFPRI, Kenya. In line with this, over 350 probationers have to citizens, professionals, cities and districts. already been trained India at the IAS training academy A series of panel discussions generated new ideas in Mussoorie, so they are ready to “activate” Eat on how to take this forward. Right India on Day 1 in the districts they are posted to. Drawing inspiration to create a similar state- One of the most promising channels is through level cadre, states suggested linking in the state NetProFaN, a large network of six professional administrative training institutes, too. bodies comprising doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, food technologists and scientists, chefs and food To appeal to citizens at large, Harish Bhat, brand analysts across India. A robust and ready platform, it custodian, Tata Sons, applied ten marketing has chapters in 11 states across India. principles to boost the campaign, and the bottom line “FSSAI has launched an ambitious, unique and very was it had to be exciting, memorable and become a inclusive campaign. The movement needs to grow digital movement. to the interiors of the country. Our convergence with Even as FSSAI is busy planning for multiple Eat administrative authorities is the only way to get things Right events ahead, CEO Pawan Agarwal concluded really moving,” said Jagmeet Madan, President, that the event in Goa “has helped to enhance Indian Dietetic Association (IDA). Madan also the commitment of various stakeholders to the stressed that the states need a bit more handholding movement, reaffirm their faith and belief that they are and guidance on structures, how to get stakeholders on the right path and celebrate the success so far.” together, flow of work and protocol. Mumbai Central: The first Eat Right India railway station certified in November 2019. Contact: Ashi Kohli Kathuria Senior Nutrition Specialist For more information on Eat Right India: Email:akathuria1@worldbank.org https://www.fssai.gov.in/