Chennai: Significant technological advances in the packing industry may have increased the shelf life of food products but lack of enforcement of safety norms remains a serious concern in the state.
The death of an eight-yearold girl — reportedly after she consumed a soft drink — in Cuddalore has again trained the spotlight on food adulteration and lack of checks.
Low levels of consumer awareness make the situation more dangerous, say activists. Santhana Rajan of Consumer Association of India says few customers check the shelf life of food products.
Health experts say the problem is exacerbated by the hightemperature, high-humidity conditions, which cause food to go bad fast, in Chennai and other parts of the state.
The perils of consuming spoilt or adulterated food cannot be stressed enough, doctors say. Deaths are rare, they say, but consumption of adulterated food increases the risk of cancer and liver and heart damage in the long term.
Tamil Nadu Bakers Federation (TNBF) president S Kumar says soft drink wholesalers, for example, regularly visit outlets that stock their products in urban areas and shopkeepers return beverages past their use-by date. “But this is not the case in rural areas where retailers sell soft drinks that are several months old,” he said.
But customers say fake products, including soft drinks, are a major problem in Chennai where unscrupulous retailers are ready to sell them for a marginally higher profit.
TNBF secretary S P Natarajan says it is the responsibility of retailers to alert distributors well before products reach their use-by date.
“The standard practice for bakeries is to use bread and milk that goes bad to make other bakery products like rusk and paneer that are safe to consume,” he said.
Sources in the soft drink industry say some companies divert old stock for sale on trains. “The passengers buy the soft drinks because they don’t have many alternatives,” he said.
1,000 soft drink bottles seized
The food safety and drugs administration department on Thursday seized in Anna Nagar more than 1,000 bottles of the drink of the same batch which caused the death of an eight-year-old girl. District food safety officer S Lakshmi Narayan said they seized 1,080 bottles of pet bottles with batch number AH 46 L4 with manufacturing date 23-01-2014 from a distributor. “We have stopped the sale of the soft drinks carrying the batch number and manufacturing date. The department has also created awareness among vendors to stop the sales of the affected batch”. Complaints can be made to the food safety department at 04423813095 or emailed to commrfssa@gmail.com.
Raids should be like done for Gutka....
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