Akshaya Patra kitchen facility in earthquake-hit Nepal

The Akshaya Patra Foundation has always considered relief requests on high priority. Over the last 15 years of its existence, Akshaya Patra has been seen as an active relief provider in terms of food apart from its core cause of providing mid-day meal to Government school children.

Akshaya Patra has been continuously striving towards providing food relief to the earthquake  affected citizens of Nepal. Following the first devastating earthquake on the 25th of April, the Foundation send across 100,000 cooked meals to Nepal and later an additional 2,500 kilograms of emergency food aid was also provided to the region. The two high magnitude earthquakes each of 7.8 and 7.3 left the Himalayan kingdom in a devastating turmoil. The decision and conceptualization of setting up an Akshaya Patra kitchen came by after a joint committee comprising of members from Jamsetji Tata Trust, Sipradian Sahayata Sanstha and Akshaya Patra witnessed the unsafe and unhygienic condition where women are cooking food with the available materials. Over 55,000 Nepalese citizens have gone homeless and there is considerable shortage of food and clean drinking water. 

In view of the needful situation, The Jamsetji Tata Trust requested Akshaya Patra to set up and begin operation in the affected areas. Thus with the support of the Jamsetji Tata Trust and Sipradian Sahayata Sanstha, Akshaya Patra is constructing its kitchen facility in Bhaktapur, a location 14 kilometres away from Kathmandu. This Akshaya Patra kitchen will have the capacity to provide up to 100,000 meals per day to the affected people of Nepal. This kitchen will come by as huge relief aid in terms of safe, hygienic and healthy meals for the people of the Himalayan kingdom. 

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Another milestone in the food safety measures of Akshaya Patra

Since the time of inception, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has taken utmost care in providing clean, hygienic and nutritious mid-day meal to the children of Government schools. Over the years of service, Akshaya Patra has equipped itself with latest technologies and processes to enhance food safety measures. Each of the Akshaya Patra kitchens at 24 locations follows standard food safety and manufacturing practices. 

Whether it is a centralised kitchen unit or decentralised, each employee is adheres to the operational manual of the Foundation. Measures like maintaining personal hygiene, quality check during procurement of raw materials, quality maintenance during storage of raw materials, quality and safety during cooking, safety measures during transportation and delivery, post-delivery quality check processes like audits and feedbacks are mandatory and routine tasks at each Akshaya Patra kitchen. 

Usage of Stainless Steel 304 vessels, sterilisation of all vessels, equipment and delivery vans, customised meal delivery vehicles, continual improvement methods like Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma and ISO 22000:2005 certification of 11 kitchens and continued efforts for certification of the remaining kitchens are measures taken to ensure that food prepared at Akshaya Patra kitchen are nutritious, hygienic and tasty.

Moving forward in the path of providing quality mid-day meal, Akshaya Patra recently inaugurated its first Food Safety and Quality Control Laboratory in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. This lab is sponsored by the Jamsetji Tata Trust and is exemplary of a philanthropic and strategic partnership. Akshaya Patra’s Food Safety and Quality Control Lab (FSQC Lab) aims to assess food products from pre-production stage to post production stage. It is equipped with state-of-the-art testing facilities with technologies like the Atago make table top refractometer to analyse total soluble solids, fat purity, adulteration of oil etc. and the Shimadzu make spectrophotometer to evaluate DNA/protein concentration, absorbance, transmittance and the like. It also houses latest technological equipment for measuring microbial count.

The setting up of this specialised lab was a joint effort with technical assistance received from the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru. The inauguration of the lab was graced by noted dignitaries – Dr. Sanjiv Phalsankar, Programme Director, Tata Trusts; Dr. Alok Srivastava, Senior Principal Scientist, Department of Food Safety and Quality Control Lab; Representatives from the Food and Drugs Control Administration, Government of Gujarat; Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation; Chanchalapathi Dasa, Vice - Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation and Jaganmohan Krishna Dasa, Unit President, Gujarat. Thanking all the support partners, Madhu Pandit Dasa said that this lab is a step towards ensuring further hygiene and quality of prepared meals and further meeting the food safety standards.

Read more about this new initiative at AkshayaPatra Food Lab at Ahmedabad.

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