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Introduction:

To improve public health in India and combat negative nutritional trends to fight lifestyle diseases, FSSAI launched ‘The Eat Right Movement’ on 10th July, 2018. The food industry, public health professionals, civil society and consumer organizations, influencers and celebrities came together on a common platform and pledged to take concrete steps to amplify ‘The Eat Right Movement’ in the country.

The movement is based on three key themes, ‘if it’s not safe, it’s not food’ (safe food), ‘food should not only serve the palate but is also meant for body and mind’ (healthy diets) and ‘food has to be good both for people and the planet’ (sustainable diets).

The strength of the ‘The Eat Right Movement’ lies in its holistic and collaborative approach, with stakeholders on both the demand and supply-side joining to make a difference through some clearly identified steps.

• On the demand side, the Eat Right Movement focuses on empowering citizens to make the right food choices.
• On the supply side, it nudges food businesses to reformulate their products, provide better nutritional information to consumers and make investments in healthy food as responsible food businesses.

The Eat Right Challenge is envisioned as a competition among districts and cities to recognize their efforts in adopting and scaling up various initiatives under Eat Right India. Further, it is meant to motivate states to improve performance and encourage others to join.

‘The Eat Right Movement’ brings together three ongoing initiatives of FSSAI:

• Safe & Nutritious Food Initiative, Focused on social and behavioural change around food safety and nutrition at home, school, workplace and on-the-go;
• The Eat Healthy Campaign, Focused on reduction of high fat, sugar and salt foods in the diet; and
• Food Fortification, Focused on promoting five staple foods-wheat flour, rice, oil, milk and salt that are added with key vitamins and minerals to improve their nutritional content

Learn about the Challenge:

1. The Heads of Municipal Bodies, Districts and Food Safety Commissioners are invited to participate in the Eat Right Challenge to ensure safe and healthy food in your cities and districts.

2. List of activities have been identified under 5 themes for your cities/districts to achieve. You may suggest your own innovative ideas as well.

3. Through regulatory activities, social and behaviour change communication, food safety compliance and preventive healthcare can be ensured. This will assist in :

1. Strengthening food safety through the food regulatory environment
2. Provision of safe and healthier food options to citizens
3. Engagement of citizens for adoption and demanding healthier diets through social and behaviour change.

4. Innovative practices get special financial funding.

5. Brand your cities/districts to get special recognition.

Salient Features:

The Eat Right India Movement is working on three key themes through a graded “Food Systems Approach” (FSA) to address these issues in a holistic manner by building on the collective action of all stakeholders – consumers, food businesses, community organizations, experts, professionals, and the government. Multiple actions, not only on the supply-side, but also on the demand-side are needed. Therefore, various actionables under the Challenge have been categorized under four sectors:

1. Robust Food Regulatory System: The food authority has taken informed steps to formulate new and strengthen the existing food standards in the country. This includes setting globally-benchmarked standards, credible food testing, surveillance and various enforcement activities. Through the Challenge, the aim is to broaden the reach of registration/licensing, enforcement, surveillance, among other core regulatory activities of FSSAI.
2. Self-compliance of Food Businesses & Capacity Building: Food may be contaminated with a variety of microorganisms at various stages across the supply chain – post-harvesting, storing, processing or during handling operations. Through training and certification of both big and small businesses, and unorganized vendors, self-compliance to regulations and standards set by the Authority can be achieved through a graded approach.
3. Changing Food Environments: Preventive healthcare is critical and lowers the burden of disease on the country and hence boosts productivity of its people. As food is a common thread linking citizens everywhere, the food authority’s approach is to transform the ‘food environment’ in the country to provide safe, healthy, nutritious, and sustainable diets to all. While doing so, engagement with both the consumers and the food industry is strengthened.
4. Mass Mobilization: To make Eat Right India a people’s movement, the authority is planning to organise large-scale citizen-centric campaigns to bring about social and behavioural change. This includes awareness generation about reduction in the consumption of High Fat, Trans-fat, Salt and Sugar foods, while promoting consumption of local, seasonal and fortified foods for better health outcomes. This will create an environment of opting for informed healthier choices.

Expected Outcomes:

To strengthen food safety through the food regulatory environment: Under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the Food safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the food safety administrations in the States / UTs are expected to create food environments where safe and wholesome food (food promoting good health and wellbeing) is available for all. This will ensure that a database of licensed/registered food businesses is available with FSSAI.

To provide for safe and healthier food options by enabling the supply side: The food environment today is working towards delivering healthy diets. They are still at the risk of malnutrition, and increasing incidence of food borne illnesses. This can be addressed by adoption of healthier menus, reducing high fat, trans-fat, sugar and salt foods, and adequately disposing used cooking oil for production of bio diesel at the food industry end. Nudging the food businesses to provide for healthier options in their food menus and products is, therefore, necessary. Food safety can thus be achieved by building capacities of the businesses and ensuring self-compliance to regulations.

To engage with citizens for adoption and demanding healthier diets: Eat Right India is people’s movement with targeted promotion of dietary diversity and balanced diets, eating mindfully and timely, and promoting large-scale fortification of staples to address micronutrient deficiencies are some ways to encourage the consumer demand for healthier diets. This will ensure lower incidence of disease and increased focus on preventive healthcare through social behaviour change.

Eligibility Criteria:

1. All districts of the country. If a district has a city of population over 5 lakhs, it can register as a district.
2. Cities (with more than 1 district) and a population of over 5 lakhs . For North East and Hill Stations, cities with a population of over 2 lakhs can register.
3. Only 150 cities and districts that register on a first-cum-first-service basis will be eligible for the challenge.

Steps For Implementation:

1. Preparatory Phase
2. Online Registration
3. Implementation Phase
4. Monitoring & Evaluation
5. Timeliness, Awards & Recognition

Financial Aid:

FSSAI will provide seed funding of INR 5 lakhs to the first 150 cities/districts to register. The money will be disbursed in two phases – 50 percent immediately upon submission of the action plan to the Competent Authority, and the remaining 50 percent over the course of the Challenge.

For any innovative projects proposed, funds up to INR 5 lakhs will be provided on a case-case basis in two parts, over the course of the year, upon submission of the Activity Proposal on the website.

Funds may be directed and utilized from other national flagship programmes like POSHAN Abhiyaan, Ayushman Bharat, National Health Mission (NHM), Anaemia Mukt Bharat etc. may also be done to conduct the IEC activities. The city/district may also leverage Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds by engaging with various types of organizations.

Download, Read & Share: Guidance Note on Food Hygiene Safety and Month-wise Initiatives

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