Ludhiana: The food-safety team of the health department claimed on Tuesday that it caught a restaurant in Satta Bazaar using chicken powder, which had been labelled as non-vegetarian, in a vegetarian dish.
Though chicken powder is mostly vegetarian, the powder that the department caught had been labelled as non-vegetarian, said district health officer Dr Andesh Kang at a press conference here.
The team also found the restaurant using expired sauce and vinegar during the raid it carried out on Monday afternoon, said Dr Kang.
That was not all. The official said they also found that the restaurant did not have a clearance from the health department and its premises lacked pest control. Following the findings, the team collected samples of all items from the restaurant. “The items have been sent for an examination and the result is expected in 15 days,” said Dr Kang.
If the food is found unfit, the restaurant will be fined, he added.
Dr Kang said the team also collected two samples each of paneer and curd. Following the raid, the team also checked a restaurant at Omaxe Mall on Tuesday. The team collected samples of paneer to check for adulteration and water served by the eatery.
Dr Kang said cooking staff at the restaurant in Satta Bazaar had admitted to using chicken powder in preparation of vegetarian dishes. “This is a violation of food-safety norms,” he said. “Samples have been taken of different food items and sent to our laboratory for testing, so that maximum penalty could be imposed on the violator.”
The official added that raids carried out on Tuesday did not reveal many violations.
‘No sticker on fruits, veggies’
The food-safety commissioner of Punjab has sent a letter to all food-safety teams working at the district level, asking them to spread awareness among traders that fruits and vegetables should not be sold with stickers pasted on them. Commissioner K S Pannu said in the letter that stickers are used on food products to provide information on traceability, grades and price as a common practice across the globe, but it was found that such stickers were used on fruits and vegetables just to make them look premium. “Traders use stickers to make their product look premium or sometimes to hide any defect on the product. ‘Tested Ok’, ‘Good Quality’ and so on are some common terms mentioned on the stickers. These do not have any significance at all,” he said. People generally remove stickers from fruits or vegetables and consume without thinking about residues of adhesives present on them, he said. “This is a violation of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006,” said Pannu.
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