Indian Dairy Association Wants Increased Use Of Stainless Steel
The Indian Dairy Association (IDA), the apex body of the dairy industry in the country, has stressed on the need to enhance the usage of stainless steel in the dairy industry to ensure safe and healthy dairy products.
Taking its commitment ahead to enhance usage of standard products, Bureau of Indian Standards has also released the new standards for design and development of stainless steel milk cans.
The seminar on “Stainless steel in dairy to enhance food safety”, jointly organised by Indian Stainless Steel Development Association (ISSDA) and Indian Dairy Association in alliance with Jindal Stainless, asserted on the significance of using stainless steel in diary.
Present on the occasion were Dr. G.S. Rajorhia, vice president of the Indian Dairy Association, Anupam Prakash, director of Ministry of Steel, K.K. Pahuja, president of the Indian Stainless Steel Development Association, and Ashok Gupta, director of Jindal Stainless (Hisar) Limited, among others.
“Hygiene and quality is increasingly becoming a common concern for milk and milk products which is consumed by all age groups. Seventy per cent of the milk production pertains to unorganized sector. India being the largest producer of Milk at 146.3 million tonnes/day demands specified guidelines for the segment when it comes to health. The focus of the unorganized is more on commercial aspect than the hygiene and health issue which leads to use of unfavorable materials for processing and storage,” the association said in a press release.
“Various research reports emphasize that use of hazardous materials in diary industry have serious impact on public health as few materials lead to food contamination. Stainless Steel has emerged as an alternate material for various usages in the dairy sector and approximately 8000-10,000MT of Stainless Steel is used for storage, processing and transportation equipment’s every year in India,” it said.
CODEX, the international food standards under WHO, has also recommended stainless steel as a preferred material for storage of food and transportation.
Pahuja said: “Research demonstrates that compared to other materials, stainless steel is the most hygienic and biologically suitable material for milk processing and storage. Due to increased focus on hygiene, quality and food safety standards, usage of stainless steel has grown. Our effort is to increase the pace of adoption of stainless steel in this area to ensure a better public health.”
According to Rajorhia, “Stainless steel is an integral part of dairy industry. Its erosion and corrosion free characteristic is recognized by the dairy industry for total food safety and public health.”
Gupta of Jindal group, said: “We appreciate the efforts taken by regulators to ensure quality standards as with new guidelines issued by BIS for milk cans.
The scenario will change in the dairy sector as well. Taking a cue from these efforts, we at Jindal stainless along with can producers have developed a low cost prototype of stainless steel milk can which is not only better in quality but also low cost as it uses alternate stainless steel grade and conforms to standard laid out by Bureau of Indian Standards for milk cans.”
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