FSSAI facilitated a national webinar on “Edible Oil Fortification: From Commitment to Action” on 25 September 2020 to discuss key operational areas as well as challenges in this area. It was jointly hosted by the Food Fortification Resource Centre under the FSSAI in association with GAIN. Several representatives from the government, development partners, academia and edible oil industry players participated in this webinar.
FSSAI has pointed out how India has a very high burden of malnutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies. A huge population in the country suffers from deficiency of vitamin A and D. A deficiency of these vitamins in our body can have an adverse impact on morbidity, mortality, productivity and economic growth. FSSAI has also pointed out that Vitamin A and D strengthen the immune system, and a strengthened immune system can prove to be valuable in times of the present COVID-19 pandemic.
During his opening remarks, Shri Arun Singhal, CEO, FSSAI announced that, “FSSAI is considering making it mandatory to fortify edible oil with vitamin A and D, so that people of India can enjoy better immunity with good health. This will ensure that people belonging to different socioeconomic strata will have easy access to fortified edible oil across the country”. He also stated that to facilitate the industry, the Food Fortification Resource Centre (FFRC) within FSSAI will provide the necessary technical support required to enable fortification of edible oil at the industry level.
During the webinar, discussions were held on the current scenario of edible oil fortification in India and further need for scaling-up the process with sufficient measures for quality assurance and control. Emphasis was also laid on providing support to the edible oil industry for adopting proper processes, building the capacity of premix suppliers to produce quality premixes, and upgrading the State food laboratory ecosystem for proper testing on a large scale.
The present time seems to be good to scale up edible oil fortification, across the country, to improve nutrition and health status of Indian population. Development sector organisations like GAIN along with FFRC have therefore, been working together with the oil industry to build their capacities for producing quality assured edible oil fortified with vitamin A and D. At present, 69% is fortified, which is about 7.94 MMT per annum of packaged edible oil sold across India.
Tarun Vij, Country Director, GAIN emphasized that “The Government’s mandate for scaling-up the process of edible oil fortification, should go hand in hand with building capacities of the industry for producing quality assured edible oil fortified with vitamin A and D”. Citing the example of Rajasthan where fortification of edible oil is being done since 2011, Mr Tarun Vij brought to attention how there has been a substantial reduction in vitamin A deficiency among children 10-19 years i.e., 1.9% against the national average of 15.6% (CNNS 2018-19). Attributing this to fortification he said that “perhaps the State wide production and availability of edible oil fortified with vitamin A and vitamin D in Rajasthan has contributed towards this change.”
Source : FSSAI
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