SELF-REGULATION BY FOOD INDUSTRY-THE IMPONDERABLES

With food processing industry being blamed for making food products not considered healthy all over the world, regulatory agencies have hard time to come out with a strategy to arrest this trend and regain confidence of the consumer. These agencies vested with power can impose mandatory measures for the industry to follow and many times such action many appear harsh and difficult to adhere to. This is where industry must try to take effective steps to discipline itself through sustained action collectively by taking up social responsibility for the harm done by its products. While in some countries such self regulation works to some extent in many other cases industry does not adhere to self discipline forcing governments to intervene in favor of the consumers.

"Threatened by possible government regulation and critical public opinion, industries often undertake self-regulatory actions, issue statements of concern for public welfare, and assert that self-regulation is sufficient to protect the public. The food industry has made highly visible pledges to curtail children's food marketing, sell fewer unhealthy products in schools, and label foods in responsible ways. Ceding regulation to industry carries opportunities but is highly risky. In some industries (e.g., tobacco), self-regulation has been an abject failure, but in others (e.g., forestry and marine fisheries), it has been more successful. The authors examined food industry self-regulation in the context of other self-regulatory successes and failures and defined eight standards that should be met if self-regulation is to be effective".

A critical analysis of self regulation models does indicate that it can work provided some pre-requisites are met. In a country like India it is doubtful whether self regulation will ever work since a major segment of the industry is concentrated in the small scale and cottage level sectors with many of them having not even a permanent address! As the food standard violators, especially those doing repeatedly and deliberately for financial gains are criminals in the legal sense, deterrent punishment of extreme severity only can work.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

SELF-REGULATION OF INDUSTRY-A MIRAGE?

The image of processed food industry cannot be worse that what it is to day, probably because of a substantial number amongst them ignoring the welfare and safety of the consumers they are supposed to serve. "Consumer is the king" has lost much of its sheen because of a perceived feeling of dishonesty and manipulative practices on the part of the industry. No matter how efficient the surveillance system is, there will always be black sheep indulging in undesirable activities, in their pursuit for making a fast buck. But when the industry collectively comes forward promising self restraint, an opportunity must be given to test their sincerity. Here is the American experience on such an approach.

"Two and a half years ago, amid great fanfare, major food companies announced a new era in self-regulation. They created the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, promising to stop marketing foods of poor nutritional value to children. Instead, as this report conclusively demonstrates, these foods still constitute a clear majority of the food marketed to children today. Most disturbingly, companies participating in the much-heralded Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative have actually increased their manipulation of children by escalating the use of beloved licensed characters to market unhealthy food".

Probably the above experience must be a lesson for democratic countries like India where enforcement regimes are not considered very strong. It is a situation where the consumer is trapped between the "deep sea and the devil" with no hope for any immediate relief. A radical "deterrent" regime is the need of the hour with fast track indictment of those considered committing fraud on the consumers.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com