On March 5, 2020, In its nutrition and functional food awareness series ASSOCHAM organized the 3rd National Conference on Nutrition and Functional Foods at Hotel The Park, New Delhi. Mr. G.S.G Ayyangar, CEO, FSSAI was the chief guest at the conference. He touched on the point why it is critical to talk about malnutrition and how it affects the health of an individual. Children from the age group up to 5 years face major health issues due to malnutrition. Mr. Arjan De Wagt, Chief nutrition, UNICEF India was the keynote speaker. He put his emphasis on the role employers can play by looking into the nutrition of their employees and their families. This will improve the productivity of the employees too. He also spoke about the initiative Impact 4 Nutrition that pledges the employers, organizations and individuals for healthy diet for better nutrition. They take steps towards better nutrition. Ms. Nandita Gupta, Joint secretary, department of Food and Public distribution, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution was among the special address of the conference. She spoke about how fortification as a means to meet the nutrient requirement across India through public distribution system is taking place. Indian government is trying to reach the most underprivileged both in rural and urban areas.
There were three sessions; the first one discussed about the role of partnering for improving nutrition. This session was chaired by Mr. Basanta Kumar Kar, member South Asian Policy Leadership for Nutrition and Growth (SAPLING)/ National Advisory Panel on Agriculture and Nutrition at Government of India. Panel was highly rich with experts and policy makers from different organizations, right from Dr. Siddharth Waghulkar, Deputy Head of Nutrition and School Feeding Unit, World Food Program United Nations to Ms, Sakshi Jain, Technical Coordination, FFRC-FSSAI. Dr. Siddharth spoke in the fortification of rice and shared its status in India. Ms. Sakshi spoke how FSSAI is now working towards being the enabler than just being the regulator for the food quality in India.
The second session was on private sector making impact through nutrition centric innovations and interventions. This session was lead by Mr. Minhaj Alam, Joint Secretary, MoFPI. The panelists were industry experts from Tata chemicals, Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetables Pvt. Ltd, Haxagon Nutrition, Cargill, NutriHealth etc. They shared about the innovations and interventions taken at their companies.
The final session was on improving nutrition at scale through corporate social responsibility. The chair for this session was Ms. Deepti Gulati, Head of program, global alliance on improved nutrition ( GAIN). The panelists were Ms. Suju Dutta, Director Quality, The Akshaya Patra Foundation and Dr. Majari Chandra, Consultant Therapeutic and Functional nutrition Max healthcare, Daivam wellness. The knowledge report on nutrition and functional foods was also released at the conference. The conclusion was to focus at different levels of the government, community and industrial level to combat the problem of malnutrition in India. The emphasis is now not only on the food security but also on nutrition security to alleviate problems of non-communicable diseases that arise due to lifestyle issues and poor eating habits.