Food Industry Asia (FIA), in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Food Trade and Industry (CIFTI), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), recently carried out a workshop to raise awareness of Front of Pack (FOP) Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labelling.
Food Industry Asia (FIA), in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Food Trade and Industry (CIFTI), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), recently carried out a workshop to raise awareness of Front of Pack (FOP) Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labelling.
YiFan Jiang, Head of Regulatory Affairs at FIA, then delivered a session on “GDA Labelling: Principles and Best Practice,” where she shared information on the introduction, history and benefits of GDAs, as well as highlights from FIA’s 2016 GDA survey, which was carried out across Asia, including India. Ms Jiang also highlighted details from the FIA GDA Toolkit, to help support the implementation of GDA labelling among Indian food businesses.
Delivered by resources from CIFTI, FSSAI and FIA, the workshop, entitled “Creating awareness among FBOs & SMEs on (Guideline Daily Amount) GDA labelling”, was held at Federation House in New Delhi, India. The workshop, attended by representatives from India’s food & beverage sector, including those from FIA member companies operating in India, is the first in a series of workshops planned to raise awareness of GDA nutrition labelling across India.
A lively panel discussion was then led by Sanjay Khajuria, President of CIFTI-FICCI, and Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Nestle India. Panellists included Kumar Anil, Advisor to FSSAI; Richa Mattu, Head of Nutrition (Southeast Asia) at Hindustan Unilever; Agatha Betsy from Mondelēz, and Bartholomeusz from FIA.
Steven Bartholomeusz, Director of Advocacy and Communications at FIA, said that the Indian food industry should look at how other markets in Asia have adopted GDA labelling, and also requested that companies, especially FIA member companies that have already adopted GDA labelling, help promote the scheme among the rest of the food industry, and share best practices.
Pawan Agarwal, FSSAI Chief Executive Officer, said that India will implement GDA labelling, but added that the challenge would be how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and consumers could be made more aware of and educated about this scheme. He commended FIA and CIFTI for organising these awareness-raising workshops in India.
