Kolkata: Restaurant bodies in Kolkata have asked members to ensure that every stored food item, including raw and cooked vegetables, frozen and fresh meat, fish, paneer and ingredients like spices, is labelled. They have also asked restaurants to ensure that no food, raw or cooked, is stored for more than three days. The restaurants have been threatened with membership cancellation if they don’t attend food safety training programmes.
But frozen meat can be stored safely for months at -18°C if a proper cold chain is maintained,” said Sagar Daryani, president of NRAI.
This ensures that food is used on a ‘first-in, first-out’ basis,” said Sudesh Poddar, president of Hotel and Restaurants’ Association of Eastern India (HRAEI). There are multiple suppliers and we don’t need to store so we don’t label it either,” said a central Kolkata restaurant manager. Park Street icons Mocambo and Peter Cat, which were inspected last week and verbally received a clean chit, said they don’t need to store any food for more than two days. “Mostly, we use up everything in a day and a half,” said owner Nitin Kothari.
Labelling has been a major issue during inspections carried out across restaurants over the last week. “We have started enforcing it strictly as per FSSAI rules and the issue is being stressed at the training workshops now being held. Every stored item has to be labelled with the date of purchase and the use-by date which can’t be more than three days. Both National Restaurants’ Association of India (NRAI) and HRAEI have lined up multiple Food Safety Supervisor Training & Certification (FOSTAC) sessions for food supervisors across restaurants. Labelling, though, remains a concern, since many claim to ‘use up their stocks within a few days’. “We hardly store any food for more than two days. “We have urged restaurants to use ‘Made Ready Date’ (MRD) labels for all cooked food and put purchase date stickers on all raw material. You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Kolkata | Silver Rate in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata | Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Petrol Price in Kolkata | Diesel Price in Kolkata | CNG Price in Kolkata | LPG Price in Kolkata
As per FSSAI rules, restaurants should have one supervisor for every 25 food handlers. While HRAEI claimed to have trained 2,500 supervisors during 2025-26, it plans to double the number this year. More than 2,500 have already attended these workshops,” added Poddar.
“We have five-six sessions, some of which have already been held, scheduled over the next fortnight.