Quality Council of India (QCI) at the behest of the FSSAI has come out with a Scheme for approval of Hygiene Rating Audit Agencies to scale up Hygiene Rating by increasing the number of recognised Hygiene Rating Audit Agencies in the country. The detail of the scheme is available on QCI’s website.

FSSAI’s initiative of ‘Food Hygiene Rating Scheme’ is a certification system for food businesses supplying food directly to consumers, either on or off premise. The food establishments are rated based on food hygiene and safety conditions observed at the time of audit. The hygiene rating will be in the form of smileys (1 up to 5) and the certificate should be displayed prominently in the consumer facing area. The recognised Hygiene Rating Audit Agencies will be responsible for verifying the compliance with food hygiene and safety procedures laid by FSSAI and get Hygiene Rating.

The scheme aims to allow consumers to make informed choices/decisions pertaining to the food outlets where they eat by encouraging food businesses to improve their hygiene and safety standards. Currently, this scheme is applicable for Food service establishments (such as hotels, restaurants, cafeteria, dhabhas, etc), sweet shops, bakeries and meat retail stores.

The recognised Hygiene Rating Audit Agency will verify the compliance with food hygiene and safety procedures laid by FSSAI.

Sh. Arun Singhal, CEO FSSAI mentioned “Hygiene Rating Scheme can be instrumental in creating awareness amongst the consumers and developing a culture of self-compliance amongst food business operators. It will improve quality of food supply and increase demand as well. I urge all eligible food businesses to implement Hygiene Rating Scheme in their premises”

Mr. Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman, QCI emphasised that Hygiene Rating and its recognition scheme is an excellent initiative of FSSAI and QCI, and will help in improving the confidence of the Indian consumer and food service operators in the basic hygiene and quality of the food. These kinds of standards and conformity assessment always lead to an improved demand for the food service outlets and improved confidence from the consumer. I wish the scheme great success.

Dr.R.P.Singh, Secretary General, QCI mentioned that Food hygiene and safety is an important initiative of FSSAI and QCI in the country especially due to awareness of consumers about concerns of hygiene during the pandemic. Going forward this initiative will definitely help consumers to choose the right outlets and will provide incentive to food outlets to create trust of their brand and improve their visibility within this growing sector.

Hygiene Rating Scheme expands recognised audit agencies to verify food hygiene and enable consumer choice through visible ratings. Recognition scheme authorises QCI to accredit Hygiene Rating Audit Agencies to audit food businesses supplying directly to consumers, verify compliance with FSSAI hygiene and safety procedures, and assign a visible hygiene rating represented by smileys to be displayed in consumer-facing areas. The scheme applies to food service establishments, sweet shops, bakeries and meat retail stores and centralises conformity assessment through recognised auditors to promote informed consumer choice and incentivise higher hygiene standards.