Health officers raid bakeries in Kalamassery Municipality, seize items

Officials of Ernakulam’s District Health Department raided over a dozen bakery establishments in Kalamassery Municipality recently, upon receiving several complaints of food poisoning from citizens.

Kalamassery is a suburb of Kochi, and an important industrial area with heavy density of population. There are numerous labour camps in the suburb, where labour from different parts of the country work.

A S Nawas, health inspector, Kerala health department, said the shopkeepers and their staff failed to adhere to the hygiene norms prescribed by the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006. “The labour camps house more people than the prescribed number, and have fewer toilets,” he added. 

The raids were supervised by district medical officer Dr Haseena Mohammed and rural health officer P N Srinivas. Other health inspectors who conducted them included K P Santosh, P Sabu, M M Zakir and Rafiq Joseph. 

They seized and destroyed large amounts of illegal food items, stale bakery items and confectionery. Nawas said, “Shopkeepers were caught repacking and relabelling such items as halwa, chips and jalebi with new dates of manufacturing.” 

“Serious health concerns were raised about the confectionery and bakery items owing to the over-use of oil, which had turned black as a result,” he added. Students who consumed these items repeatedly suffered headaches. 

“A better level of awareness among students must be created to tackle such problems. While the health department is creating awareness programmes in schools and colleges, teachers and parents have a bigger role to play in the issue,” said Santosh.

The confectionery was manufactured and sold in small shops, but their production remains untraced. Following the issue of notices by the health department, the shopkeepers confessed to the malpractice, and promised not to repeat it.

Earlier this year, the District Health Department conducted Operation Hot Water wherein it raided over 500 hotelshotels and bakeries. Two establishments were shut down and notices were sent to over 100 outlets for violating the Act.