Food safety testing in India, An uphill task to fill the infrastructural gap

Have you ever wondered if the food we eat is actually safe? How can we trust the quality of our food?

FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) is the apex government body that regulates the entire food and beverage industry in India. One of the critical elements in ensuring food safety is laboratory testing. There are primarily four types of testing for any food product. Depending upon the requirement and case to case, a food product could undergo either or all of these tests. 

1. Chemical testing
2. Biological testing
3. Mechanical testing
4. Pesticide/Residue testing

Among these, the most common is chemical testing. Chemical residues are the remaining parts of substances used during a particular process, say crop production or pest control. 

Background of Food Testing

Food business operators (FBOs) and hotels, restaurants, and caterers (HoRECA) are mandatorily required to get their products tested for quality and safety at food testing labs. In addition, these labs also serve as research and development centers for FBOs and government agencies. 

Such labs, in turn, are accredited by NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) NABL has been established with the objective of providing Government, Industry Associations and Industry in general with a scheme of Conformity Assessment Body’s accreditation which involves third-party assessment of the technical competence of testing including medical and calibration laboratories, proficiency testing providers and reference material producers. Accreditation process details are provided in NABL 100 “General Information Brochure”.

Food labs could be classified in below five categories;

1. Private Lab – FSSAI notified
2. FBO with Food Testing Labs
3. State Labs
4. Non-FSSAI Labs
5. Institutional Labs 
6. Referral labs

Private labs are accessible to industry players for food testing and R&D requirements, unlike FBO labs which are mostly operated as captive units. State labs are found to be the most underdeveloped among all other types of labs primarily due to government interference in setting up and operation of labs.

So how many of the food and related items actually go under the scanner in the laboratory before it reaches the final consumer? There are a few very surprising observations in this regard.

Current Food Testing Scenario

For easier understanding, we will take into consideration only NABL accredited food testing labs that work for over 6.33 lakh FBOs + HoRECA. Total lab testing capacity stands at 49.5 lakh units per year versus the required capacity of 1.28 crore units, assuming 10 food products per FBO with each product being tested twice every year.

That’s quite a shortfall, isn’t it?

Counter-intuitively, in spite of the shortage of labs primary research found that most of these labs are actually operated below capacity because of fewer products being tested and lower compliance levels. Compliance level refers to the % of FBOs and HoRECA that adhere to testing requirements.

Now, let’s take a look at how we can fill this gap.

Requirement of Food Testing Laboratories

In order to accurately estimate additional food labs required, the compliance level is critical. Even at 50% compliance, there is considerable need for new labs. As the compliance level(CL) and testing improve (which most of us would prefer), we effectively need more new labs than existing labs.

We can understand this opportunity better by looking at the supply and demand dynamics across different regions of our country.

Following interesting trends can be observed – 

• East India has an extremely low number of labs, requiring nearly 4x new labs compared to existing.
• North India requires the highest number of labs (above 2x existing capacity) due to the high number of FBOs & HoRECA in the region.
• West India has considerable scope for expansion despite high FBOs & HoRECA and a good number of labs.
• South India is the only region where the required number of labs is less than existing labs but still currently it has less than 60% of required labs.

Current food processing industry in India is still at a nascent stage with processing at less than 10% of overall production. Only 2% of fruits and vegetables, 8% marine, 35% milk, and 6% poultry products are processed. With recent government reforms for the agriculture sector including INR 35,000 crore funds for the development of micro food processors across the country, the processing industry would definitely see double-digit growth which in turn would put more pressure on current laboratory infrastructure. 

AgroLyf opinion: Since setting up of labs are capital intensive and also require substantial capital to run smoothly and offer diverse testing capabilities, we see a trend moving towards more advanced and frugal testing methodologies like Image processing and spectral analysis, Artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT devices are expected to take a big leap in democratizing testing capabilities. There are a handful of Indian companies and startups working on these technologies but the impact has just begun. These easy to deploy and less capital intensive solutions offer a very attractive value proposition. 

Stay tuned to understand more about these advanced solutions as we talk about them in our upcoming blogs.  

This article is based on Metastudy On Food Testing Laboratories in India by FSSAI.