The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said that TajSATS has been served an improvement notice over the incident of a passenger finding a blade in a meal served onboard Air India. This comes even as the food safety authority has been asking airlines and airline caterers  to strictly adhere to food safety norms.

Responding to businessline’s queries, the FSSAI said that the Airport Health Officer has carried out an inspection at TajSATS Bengaluru, Kempegowda international airport, from where the food item was supplied. TajSATS Bengaluru is under the jurisdiction of APHO, Bangalore, which has issued it the license.

“The blade found in the food item was from one of the automatic vegetable cutter which accidentally got displaced and got stuck inside the vegetable piece. Following a detailed inspection, corrective measures have been implemented and an improvement notice has been served to prevent similar incidents in the future,” the food safety authority stated.

Additional measures are also being implemented. “Among other measures, an X-ray machine would have to be installed to detect metal pieces in food items at the facility where food items are packed in metallic foil or in packaging material having any metallic component. It has been instructed that manual chopping of vegetables would have to be carried out till the time this system is implemented,” the FSSAI’s statement added.

In a statement released earlier this week, TajSATS had said, ““We apologise for the unfortunate incident. We are committed to the highest standards of food safety and have strengthened our processes of comprehensive inspection and preventive maintenance of all our production equipment.”

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Since January, the Food Safety Authority has held several meetings with airlines and airline caterers on food safety issues. In the past, it had directed airlines and airline caterers to establish robust mechanisms for prompt resolution, including corrective and preventive actions to minimise food safety-related incidents. It also emphasised specialised training programmes for catering staff to provide a comprehensive understanding of food safety and hygiene practices.

In March, FSSAI had directed airlines to adhere to licensing as well as menu labelling norms. For prepared foods, it had said airlines must display details on labels such as caterer’s names, FSSAI license number, date and time of packaging, and use by date and time.

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