Ethics in Production Management - 3. Process Issues: Additive & Intrinsically hazardous products

Ethical manufacturing is a holistic approach to the manufacturing process that focuses on good health for all involved. Ethical business care about every part, every facet, of their company, from  production to the customer, ethical business manufacture safe products safely.

Additives haveserved useful functions in a variety of foods ;  Approximately 2 million years ago – cooking, later augmented by fermenting, drying, preserving, and other primitive forms of food processing. This has led to development of the early Food Industry . The Industrial revolution could not have occurred without a food delivery system that allowed people to leave the farms, migrate to the cities, and engage in useful production of goods and services for society.

Preservatives are a type of food additive that is put into packaged food to prolong its shelf life, enhance the taste or keep the colour and nutrients of the product intact.

In harmony with the global food standards of Codex Alimentarius Commission and WHO, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has laid down several regulations for the use of preservatives. FSSAI, under the Health Ministry, has fixed the maximum limit for use of additives in various food groups to ensure the acceptable daily intake is not exceeded. It has also stepped up measures to strengthen quality standards while reviewing the existing rules for caffeine content, metal contaminants and other residues in food products.

It is mandatory for a food business operator to declarethe preservatives used on the label of a packaged food product. The label, normally found on the back of the package, lists ingredients in the order of their quantity in the food and preservatives (used in small amounts) are most often listed at the bottom.



 

In terms of a global market approaching $30 billion p.a., approximately 40% of additives are used to affect the taste, 30% the texture and 5% the appearance of food. Nearly 20% serve as processing aids, and only about 5% are added for safety reasons, to protect consumers from bacterial food poisoning and rapid deterioration of food quality. The latter are crucially important in inhibiting the growth of bacteria causing conditions such as botulism, which is a serious form of food poisoning. On average, in industrialised countries, each consumer ingests 7–8 kg of food additives p.a., an amount costing food manufacturers about £12.

The legal definition of food additives is in a state of flux because in 2011 the EU will introduce a new list of authorised flavourings. About 5000 artificial flavourings are currently permitted, largely according to the criterion that the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) designates ‘generally recognised as safe’ (GRAS). The term ‘additive’ does not generally apply to substances added to food unintentionally, such as packaging migrants, agrochemicals used in crop production or drug residues resulting from treatment of farm animals. Although these substances are often matters of ethical concern, neither they, nor substances intentionally added to so-called functional foods, are discussed here

 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CG @ FTMF - Debt Funds

  India’s debt fund market has been roiled in the last couple of years when two big non-banking finance companies, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd and Dewan Housing Finance Corp, collapsed around September 2018 and June 2019, respectively. Several debt funds that were exposed to these NBFCs had to write their investments off. Then, in March 2020, as many as 34 debt funds saw their net asset values go down as they had exposure to Yes Bank’s debt. Of this, funds managed by Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund reportedly lost Rs 590 crore, the second-highest losses booked, after Nippon Mutual Fund’s loss of Rs 2,500 crore.  While the corporate bond market has been suffering, prompting the Reserve Bank of India to inject more liquidity, India may not be that badly placed either. In fact, on Friday, (24 04/2020) Bloomberg reported that following the RBI’s moves, India is actually leading returns this month in Asia’s dollar bond market, with the country’s dollar bo...
Read more

Best Practices: Strategies for CSR

Image
  Why do companies take up CSR activities? Sprinkle & Maines (2010) claim that organizations may engage in CSR activities for 4 reasons: organizations may have altruistic intentions; they may use CSR activities as “window dressing” to appease various stakeholder groups; for potential benefits of recruitment, motivation and retainment of employees; for customer-related motivations as CSR may entice consumers to buy organization’s products and services. Weber (2008) indicates five key areas where CSR creates positive relations: Positive effect on organization‘s image and reputation; positive effect on employee motivation, retention and recruitment; cost savings; revenue increases from higher sales and market share; and CSR-related risk reduction or management. Polonsky & Jevons (2009) found that possible reasons to organizations of being socially responsible include: improved financial performance; contribution to market value; a more general positive impact on societal sta...
Read more

Corporate Governance @ Production(Effluents): Coca-Cola , Plachimada

  Plachimada is a little hamlet in Palakkad District, which is known as the ‘rice bowl of Kerala.’ The majority of the population consists of  adivasis  (indigenous people). The primary occupation is agriculture. Data from the latest round of the socio-economic census reveals that 60% of the population is engaged in agriculture. This corresponds to 2,303 of the 3,802 people who are of working-age in Perumatty, The Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd ( HCCBPL) , the Indian subsidiary of the Atlanta-based manufacturer of aerated drinks in 1998, HCCBPL acquired 34.4 acres of land (mostly paddy fields) in order to set up a bottling plant at Plachimada. On January 25, 2000, the Perumatty Panchayat (a local governing body whose constituency includes Plachimada) granted permission to begin building the plant. In March 2000, operations began. The Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) granted the company a permit to produce 561,000 litres of beverage per day, with an ...
Read more