Food Testing at Canteen - Senior Management says i should test the food at the canteen before other employees take breakfast

Dear Seniors, I am working with a Pharma Company at Navi Mumbai having manpower of 96 employees . Recently i have been asked by Senior Management that as a HR Manager i should test the food at the canteen before other employees take breakfast and also before lunch i should test the food by eating . The reason is that if anything goes bad it will be on the HR Manager and corrective action can be taken. I had refused this as it is highly embarrassment . I had suggested that we develop an SOP to check the hygiene conditions , improve quality of spices and other eatables . But they are not convinced and are forcing me to do this food testing by eating the food as they feel as HR Manager it is my responsibility to see welfare of the people. Kindly Advice how should i convenience my Management.

Tusher, Im Surprised :(
we would abviously care for employees welfare but not to this extent, actually what if suppose the food is unhygenic & something happens to you, Is management going to wait & see what happens to you after you break your fast or Lunch, I don't think HR's should be involved in food testing.
here the question is not that something is going to happen if we test the food, but I wonder about the attitude of the management & concern towards the HR's.
What do you all say?
Regards
Srilatha

Dear Tusher
I can well understand your position. This is why the role of HR Manager is challenging. I have faced the same problem and now in the process of handling it.
The main reason is the lack of management interest in cafe matters. Firstly the management should be supportive and must have a manue with canteen incharge that what will be served during whole week with prices and what will be the total weight of food? You can take help from employees by appointing some worker's representative who will regular check the food taste before it is served according to the standard and report you daily. Then with the time this operation will smooth but initially you have to take it on priority basis this is how you can have soft words from employees. Sodont worry tell me i will further assisst you.
Arooj Javaid

Under the Factories Act you can form the Canteen Committe, and the committee member will bear this responsibility - Food Testing.
I thing it is directly connect with the employee satisfaction regarding the food quality. Don’t worry, nothing will happened with you, if test food first of all, to avoid grievances you can shift this responsibility to committee members.
Regards

This is really unfair and not a good idea or concept.
This job can be successfully handled by Admin. person.
Best remedy is to hire a dietician on part time basis and it wont charge much also to company. he /she can also advise for put some nutrition value in food.
And do you no what? Guys there is a chains of hospital in Mh run by mangeshkar family and do you know what? They pay hardly 3000/- p.m. for 9 hrs. per day.
so I guess to pay salary for part time wont charge to your company much and atleast you don't need to do odd jobs.

Hi Tushar,
Hello to all! ....I am a new member to this site and would like to comment on Tushar's problem.
I agree with Mr.Arooj Javid. You should appoint a small commitee of min. 4 employees to test food, but you too must be one of them. You can change the other three members occassionally so that you get a proper feedback.
By doing this you can build a caring approach towards employees & also respect the mgmt's decision of testing food.
Regards,
Beena

Dear Tushar,
It is basically how you view the situation. You can view it as a problem and try to refuse, suffer or wriggle out of it or you can view it as an Opportunity that may yield unexpected returns to you.
To put in perspective, in Armed forces Units the Commanding Officer (who is the senior most Officer) tastes food on a regular basis. He also nominates a senior responsible Officer to do food tasting in all Messes on a regular basis. In addition a written record of Observations is maintained that is reviewed frequently and action taken on the comments entered.
If I may suggest, you can start your new task with josh and be upbeat about it. May be after some period of time, you could involve HODs in it with a view to improve the Canteen food.
However, as you have already made known your views on the issue, I suggest you to go slow with the implementation of the strategy.
Best regards,
Deepak.

Dear Tushar,
I agree to what Deepak said... Give yourself a little time to plan a stratergy & implement it.. Many a times it happens that we are forced to do a task that we are not interested in doing or is not a part of our profile. Always remember "Jab seedhi ungli se ghee na nikle to ungli tedhi kar do" but for this u'll have to atleast put your finger in the bowl of ghee.
As per my views take this as a challenge, put in stratergy & handle the situation. Start doing this task for a couple of days & then slowly involve other people & then u can easily get rid of this task.
Regards,
Kanupriya

Dear Tushar,
I too agree with our citehr member, First start a committee with a group of 3 or 4member. Let every one join the committee in a term basis. so that they can give some suggestion. As your are HR person, you should start goin ahead with the committee . You be the 1st person to start the process, so that employee will be satisfied that HR is with us. And you be in the comittee.
All the best,
regards
Naveen.v

Food testing is not merely testing food poison, it means checking the quality of food etc...

and it does not mean eating a full meal,, :P :P :P

so dont worry about food testing..

in my earlier company i was HR trainee and my manager was HR manager, we had a canteen committee which checked the hygine of food, cleanliness of canteen etc..canteen committee included workers, canteen representative, and one from HR dept my HR manager, sometimes my HR manager used to tell me to go to canteen and check the food, environment there, and in our companybefore every shift the workers go and test the food and it its nice, hygenic and ok then it is approved and given as lunch, breakfast, dinner. So whenever I went with the workers to canteen they used to tell me to test food, just eat a little and approve it... coz we dont know much abt taste, and other things.

even icecream and wine tasters are there,, that does not mean necessarily that management is using u as a guenia pig,, so dont take tension,, and do the work which mgmt has given u..

seems u like to work only in AC office,, check out the air outside u will learn some things..