Health minister UT Khader
Bengaluru: The food safety and drug administration (FDA) department is set to introduce a traceability app that will track the movement of used cooking oil for ensuring its safe collection and disposal.
Khader said the quantity of used cooking oil handed over to authorised agencies must be at least 10-15% of the total cooking oil purchased by an FBO in a month. Cooking oil with total polar compounds (TPC) exceeding the permissible limit of 25% cannot be reused for food preparation. The minister said Karnataka had collected more than 91 lakh litres of used cooking oil from FBOs since 2022 and handed it over to authorised agencies.
Because it is available at a cheaper rate, bigger establishments sell their used oil to smaller establishments, which buy it.
This is why we are introducing a traceability app, which will be ready in the next three months,” health minister UT Khader said Thursday. “The app will contain details of where the oil is manufactured, who the wholesalers are and who their buyers are,” Khader said. “If a hotel purchases 300 litres of cooking oil, at least 30-45 litres of used cooking oil should be handed over to an authorised agency,” he said. “It will be similar to door-to-door collection of dry and wet waste,” Khader said.
“Repeatedly reheating cooking oil poses serious health risks. However, no matter how many raids and inspections we conduct, this practice continues. The use of the app will be made mandatory for manufacturers, wholesalers and all food business operators (FBOs). In the next phase, the initiative will be extended to households through door-to-door collection of used cooking oil.