The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII-Jubilant Bhartia Food & Agriculture Centre of Excellence) has conferred The Akshaya Patra Foundation with the CII National Award for Food Safety. The award was presented to the organisation’s Bellary unit as a token of appreciation for its holistic approach in establishing, running and managing Food Safety and Quality Systems efficiently. This move is intended to spread the importance of food safety practices and to recognise role models with a view to upgrade Indian food companies in the Micro, Small, Medium and Large scale sectors to world class levels.

Among the dignitaries from the NGO who were present at the event to receive the award in New Delhi were Shridhar Venkat, Executive Director, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Sriman Suvyakta Narasimha Dasa, Unit Head – Vrindavan and Chetan D, Manager – Operations, Akshaya Patra Bellary.

Speaking on this occasion, Muralidhar Pundla, GM, Quality and Process Excellence Department said, “We are extremely honoured to receive this award. The Bellary kitchen of Akshaya Patra faired well in all the sections and hence got the award of commendation. Though, we still believe that there is room for improvement. Therefore, our next course of action would be to continuously focus on Continual Improvement activities/projects using proven methodologies like Kaizen, CI Projects & Six Sigma Projects in Akshaya Patra’s operation.”

The CII in partnership with its stakeholders and knowledge partners launched the first CII National Award for Food Safety in 2010. This award was formed to honor organisations for pre-eminence in food safety systems, to raise awareness about sustainable success, bring about competitiveness through robust food safety systems and to provide guidance to those seeking to achieve it. Based on a process of feedback and review from stakeholders and in line with the changing market scenario, the assessment model has been duly upgraded to 2013 Revisions.