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Easy to Stomach; Difficult to Digest
Like any other city in the world, Chennai has a culture of its
own. Eating out has been our passion for a long time now, even
in the so called conservative families. Most consumers do their
food shopping at the local neighbourhood independent small
retailers, kiosks and street hawkers. Servants in high and
middle income households can usually be seen here. The lower
middle class, the have-nots and even many youngsters of the
upper class visit grocery stores, tea shops, roadside stalls and
push-carts which offer cheap, spicy eatables. Such traditional
local eateries and small-scale retailing continue to dominate
Chennai’s food retail sector.
Organised food retailing is a relatively new
phenomenon in Chennai, with small Western-style supermarkets
starting to appear only since the 90s. Most food is still sold
through local ‘wet’ market vendors, roadside pushcart sellers or
tiny groceries. Only two to three per cent of food is estimated
to be sold through super markets and departmental stores. Of
course, this share has been increasing rapidly.
The quality and purity of food sold through
the local eateries leaves much to be desired. In this context,
the latest move of the Cheannai Corporation in ordering a
crackdown on unhygienic food sold from roadside stalls in the
city comes as a big relief.
In all about four tones of cooked food items
found unsafe for human consumption were seized during the
day-long raids on Tuesday. The Health officials also seized
chilli powder, cooking oil and tea dust of poor quality were
removed. Eighty three samples of food and grocery items were
sent for quality analysis tests, according to the Corporation
sources.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. More and
frequent drives should be conducted, so that the common man will
not be tempted to taste unhygienic food.
H Ramakrishnan
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