Technological innovation must to maintain food safety standards, says PS Maiya

Technological innovation is an essential part of culinary tradition towards making the food fit the highest standards of hygiene and safety, Maiya’s Beverages and Food Pvt Ltd chairman and managing director Dr P Sadananda Maiya said.

He was speaking after inaugurating World Food Day programme organised by St Aloysius College DDU Kaushal Kendra, Department of Food Processing and Engineering and the Ddepartment of PG Studies in Food Science and Technology at the college on Wednesday.

He said for Maiya’s, which is a specialist in Indian traditional food, it was initially a challenge to apply the latest food processing technology into the Indian culinary style. However, having a background of mechanical engineering, he said he managed it successfully and made modifications to the machinery so as to enable them process Indian food, one among them being the modification of doughnut making machine into ‘Kodubale’ preparing machine. The Maiya’s kitchen  is now equipped with a fully-automated system, which suites the highest standards of food safety, he explained.

Maiya said he considers the Defense Technology Absorption Award conferred on his firm by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) to be the most accomplished one.

He recollected MTR supplied 16 lakh ready-to-eat food packets to Indian soldiers during the Kargil war in 10 days. However, lot of effort has gone into the same, in terms of research and development. For instance, it took 10 years of experiment to come up with a technology which could match the quality of automatically prepared batter of black gram with that of the hand ground ones, he said.

St Aloysius College Principal Fr Praveen Martis said that the World Food Day highlights the importance of the intake of balanced food. “Also, the occasion should be used to ponder on whether we are able to provide food for the hungry and malnutritioned. There is a need to fulfill the requirement of quality food by rediscovering hygienic and nutritional food items using technological innovations. It is very much relevant in the context of Indian food, the market of which is extending in foreign countries as well,” he noted.

Defence Research and Development Organigation Life Sciences Research Board former Secretary Dr Alok Shah and College of Agriculture, Hassan Assistant Professor Dr Ramesh B N delivered lectures on the occasion.

Ready-to-eat food saga

Maiya recalled Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR),that established in 1924, holds the credit of introducing the ready-to-eat and instant food mixes of ‘rava idli’, ‘dosa’, ‘poha’, ‘upma’, ‘puliyogare’, gulab jamun and also beverages like badam milk. Rava idly, was invented by his father Yagnanarayana Maiya in 1942. This idea emerged out of a necessity followed by a ban on the use of rice and rice items during Second World War. Maiya took over MTR after his father’s demise in 1968. Again in 1975, the MTR was buckled under pressure owing to the Food Control Act introduced during the imposition of Emergency in the country, which maintained that the quality food be sold at low costs. The government’s move made MTR to turn to instant food business. However, since 2007, MTR’s packaged food business is administered by the Norwegian firm Orkla Group.

Registrar A M Narahari, vice-principal and Kendra director Dr Richard Gonsalves and Department of Food Science and Technology head
Dr S N Raghavendra were
present.