World Health Day celebrated on 7th April to commemorate the founding of the World Health Organisation (WHO), brings worldwide recognition to the cause of global health. The theme for World Health Day 2015 is ‘From farm to plate, make food safe’, a topic that is vital to every single human being.

Food safety is something that should be available to everybody, but sadly contaminated food and water claims about two million lives each year. Akshaya Patra is determined to ensure that through its mid-day meal programme, children can be assured of having not just sufficient, but safe food to eat on every school day in India.

Akshaya Patra works hard to make sure that the food being served is absolutely safe for consumption. Some of the methods implemented to ensure this are:

•    Supplier Quality Management Systems to procure raw materials from only qualified suppliers
•    Efficient use of produce to keep them fresh
•    Utilising 304 grade stainless steel vessels that are best for cooking and storing
•    Steam sterilisation of all kitchen equipment before use
•    Excellent personal hygiene maintained by kitchen staff (use of gloves, gum boots, caps and more)
•    Proper Food Safety Management Systems implemented and supervised in kitchens
•    Customised meal delivery vans to ensure freshness of food till delivery,
•    Improvement strategies like Kaizen, CI projects and Six Sigma
•    Frequent feedback from schools along with internal checks like monthly audits and training sessions.

This hard work has borne fruit as can be seen from the recognition Akshaya Patra has received. In both 2013 and 2014 the Foundation had the honour of winning the highly prestigious CII National Food Safety Award. Akshaya Patra has also been nominated to be a member, and represents itself on the National Steering-cum-Monitoring Committee of the Central Mid-Day Meal Scheme. Invited by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), the organisation has also provided training in food quality, safety and hygiene to over 1,000 cook-cum-helpers in 14 states across India between August 2013 and March 2014.

Akshaya Patra feeds over 1.6 million children, but there are still millions more in India who struggle with daily hunger and food contamination. Help us reach out to these children and fulfil their basic need of accessing safe, healthy food every day.