Apr 19, 2015

Big Bazaar bakery under scanner

NAGPUR: Retail giant Big Baazar was found to be running a bakery on its Ramdaspeth premises without proper permissions in place. While the company has a license for running a restaurant in the building, it didn't have the necessary permissions required under the Food Safety and Standards Act of India (FSSAI). The perishable goods in the bakery were also found without appropriate information about their shelf life.
NGO Anti Adulteration Consumer Society found the violations when its members took up a routine check of the bakery on Friday. They found that products like white bread, bar chocolate cake and chilli coriander bread didn't have the essential best before date imprinted on their packages. They immediately informed officials from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who conducted an enquiry into the complaints on the same day.
"We found that some of the bakery items had a best before date in an improper format. We have taken samples and sent them for analysis. The bigger problem was that they had the licenses in place for running a restaurant and were running the bakery as part of the restaurant. The rules require separate permissions for them both," said food safety officer Praveen Umap who along with fellow officer Abhay Deshpande conducted the raid.
"Bakery items are perishable even if kept in fridge, which makes the best before and manufacturing dates necessary as per FSSAI norms. Their absence can create several health problems for consumers," said Anti Adulteration Consumer Society chairman Shahid Shareef.
When contacted, officials of Big Bazaar acknowledged that the raid had taken place and said that certain queries were raised about their operations. "Certain things have been brought to our notice in terms of the way things were operating in the bakery. We are working on those issues and care will be taken that we abide by all the rules and regulations," said the official.

Five eateries closed after raids

In raids conducted by Health Department officials in the capital district on Saturday, five eateries, including the canteen at the Neyyattinkara Government General Hospital, were closed after they were found supplying unhygienic food.
The other eateries closed were a canteen functioning at the comfort station at Neyyattinkara; two hotels at Poovar; a bakery at Puthenthope; and a hotel at Kilimanoor, a senior Health Department official told The Hindu .
The raids conducted as part of the Safe Kerala, an initiative to check infectious diseases and promote public health, found 93 teams drawn from various wings of the Health Department inspecting as many as 1,404 eateries in the district.
Food Safety Act
Of these, improvement notices have been issued to 441 eateries and fine to the tune of Rs.19,000 was collected from various outlets.
The fines were imposed under Section 69 of the Food Safety Act which has a provision for compounding offences. The team carried out checks in the eateries to ascertain the hygiene, including personal hygiene of cooks; quality of water; facility for dumping waste; and drainage facility, the official said.
Raids in eateries were conducted across the State, the official said, adding that surprise inspections would be carried out in the coming months.