“At Kwality, employees and their dependents are entitled for hospitalisation and medical care in any Government hospital under the ESIC scheme,” informs Dr Abdullah.
The bakery has an in house pest control system in place to manage pest twice daily. Tanveer Pest Control manages pests like rodents in the bakery. Ingredients and other raw materials are tested at NABL accredited external laboratory.
Fungal treatment is very necessary in bakeries, as it can cause irreparable damage to the products. This can happen if the residual matter after the production is not properly disposed off or cleaned. Fungus hampers shelf life of the product drastically. “The five designated areas marked by us are cleaned on a regular basis by a dedicated staff,” adds Dr Abdullah.
Bread products are baked at temperatures as high as 275oC to get the desired product and hygiene levels. Most of the bread varieties have a short shelf life and have to be sent to the market very fast. Kwality bakery has its own fleet of vans for delivery. There are other distributors also whose services are required in the process. Products are labelled as per the product category giving details of its shelf life.
Kwality Bakery also caters to institutional clients like Railways, D’mart, Hyper City Malls and organizations like L&T, HPCL, BPCL and Crompton Greaves. Company officials pay regular visits to the bakery unit in Andheri to ascertain the hygiene levels and quality of the products.
HR Policy and Hygiene Workflow
Kwality Bakery has aligned its HR Policy in a way so that employees abide by guidelines of the FSSAI Act to arrive at good hygiene and cleaning in the production process. Says Dr Abdullah, “There have been issues cropping up with regards to acceptance of rules like in the use of hand gloves. Many people involved in the production process avoid gloves because of allergic reaction.”
The hygiene workflow and process in big bakeries run through eight designated areas of production. The entire process involves godown, flour shifter, mixer, divider, rounder, inter prover, final prover, oven, rounder table, cooling tunnel, slicer and packaging and finally despatch godown. There are colour coded dusters for respective machines.
The panel of the slicers is opened and washed at regular intervals in the units. Damages during slicing, at oven or during handling, are managed by a well-equipped monitoring system in place. There is a separate kitchen area for savouries, where all fried items like patties, samosa, rolls, veg puff, non-veg puff are made. Bakeries procure cleaning solutions and pesticide prescribed by BMC through the respective agencies. Pest control in most of the bakeries is done three times in a month.
Better productivity through sustainable hygiene practices in bakeries can draw a good amount of business and generate surpluses by utilising the existing resources. In this way, bakeries can plough back the surplus for expanding infrastructure.
Eco Friendly Products and Automation
The quality of products through Diesel or Electric fired oven is of superior quality and hygienic by virtue of automated systems. There have been attempts to get the bakery industry to convert to fuels, which are perceived to be more eco-friendly such as electricity, diesel, gas, etc. In this case, bakers are faced with the problem of financing capital required to make the transition from wood-fired ovens to a different oven.
Automation for cleaning in bakeries has taken a setback because of the space constraint. More than 80% of the wood fired ovens in Mumbai city is running day and night and require less supervision. But, a wood fired oven requires a lot of space as compared to a diesel fired one. A Diesel fired oven of double the capacity would require a space of minimum 70sqft and wood fired one of a single capacity would require a space of 200sqft.
The commercial space in a prime area in Mumbai will cost 30, 000 to 40,000 per sqft. Being moderate, the cost can go down as low as र20,000 per sqft. The bakery unit was earlier permissible in residential locations and near the high rises, as it falls under the service industry. But now only diesel and gas fired are allowed because of the regulatory norms and infrastructural constraint. In terms of capital investment in land and building, a prime location in Mumbai will cost र50 lakh to र1.5 crore. Most of the bakeries are running in slums on leave and license basis.
ABC of FSSAI
In order to motivate bakeries in Mumbai to adhere to the rules of new Foods Safety and Standards Act, Society of Indian Bakers has released a list of 26 good manufacturing practices (GMPs) for the sector referred to as the ‘ABC of FSSAI’. SIB has simplified the process with a check list and issued it to all the manufacturers.
The list has guidelines for applying and obtaining license, attending food safety awareness meetings, educating the staff on the Act, exhibiting food safety posters in the factory, removing expired date goods because it is a health risk, providing clean and proper uniforms, conducting medical examination for all, whitewashing premises periodically, using processed water for manufacturing, keeping first aid kit at an accessible point, taking special attention in preparing the labels, buying raw materials from reputed suppliers, removing cobwebs and unwanted materials from the factory, washing floors daily, storing all finished products safely, taking effective pest control measures, ensuring mandatory use of gloves, keeping required packing material, maintaining records for stores and production, keeping delivery vehicles clean, ensuring compulsory hand wash and provision for dedicated area to clean vessels.
The Jail Factory
Bakeries are increasingly finding new markets in Indian prisons and hence the requirement for cleaning equipment and solutions there. The potential can be gauged from the fact that India has 1,328 jails – central, state and district and accommodate about 3.58 lakh prisoners.
The automated imported ovens at Thane Prison’s bakery and Delhi’s Tihar Jail (TJ’s) Bakery speak volumes about the success of Jails as a potential market yet to be tapped.
