Sep 5, 2013

Expired fruit juice products seized

Imphal, September 04 2013: Sharing details about recent seizure of fruit juice products found to have sold beyond its expiry period, Deputy Food Safety Commissioner Brojendro Khaba cautioned that sale of expired fruit juice items by some selfish traders amount to 'slow poisoning' the people of Manipur.
Speaking to newspersons at his office chamber in the Medical Directorate building today, Brojendro said executive member of Consumer Club namely Huidrom Shantikumar came across some people attending to one Laishram Tomba Meitei s/o L Gokul of Samurou after the individual complained of throat soreness and irritation moments after sipping Frooti brand fruit juice, which he had purchased from one MK Store Pan Dukan near Pologround at around 1.30 pm on August 31 .
Feeling intense irritation after taking a few sip, Tomba inspected the 500 ml bottle and realised that it has expired consumable date, said the Deputy Food Safety Commissioner who also informed that Consumer Club executive member Shantikumar accompanied by other members inspected remaining stock of the trader's godown leading to detection of more expired fruit juice packets such as Frooti, Maaza, Sprite, Limca Lime, Jumpy etc.
In addition to the fruit juice brands the Consumer Club members also detected several cartons of cooking oils which were either expired or did not bear proper labelling at the said godown, he said.
Along with impounding the unhealthy food items the said godown has been sealed.
Identifying the trader as Muna Saha (35) s/o Babul Saha from Buxar in Bihar, Brojendro said Muna named Jaganarayan (MG avenue), Manipur Traders (Thangal Bazar), SK Jain (Majorkhul), Ajit Kumar Jain (Allu Gali) and Shiva Bihari (MG avenue) as some of the agents/dealers from whom he procured the fruit juice/food items.
Among the impounded products some had no manufacture or expiry date details and the others found to be put on sale inspite of being expired, said the Deputy Food Safety Commissioner who strongly advised the general public to inspect details about date of manufacture and expiry while purchasing items.
Manufacturers of the seized items are said to be based in Satgoan (Assam), Burnihat (Meghalaya) and Vadodara (Gujarat) .
Further conveying that Muna Saha could not produce trade licence or registration documents as is mandatory for traders under the Food Safety and Standard Act, Brojendro said such a violation entails six month imprisonment as well as Rs 5 lakh penalty.
The exact term of penalty would however be decided by the Government based on the report of the Food Safety Commission, he maintained.
Additional director (Public Health) Dr S Mema Devi and Consumer club members were also present during the media briefing.

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