Fake ghee makers send food officials on chase

COIMBATORE: Fake ghee producers in the city have been sending the food safety department on a wild goose chase over the last few weeks. Officials have discovered that besides adulterating the product with vanaspati, small-time ghee producers also print fake addresses on their labels.

The food safety department which decided to throw the net over fake ghee producers in the city, were stunned when they realised that it was hard to track them down.

"We found that many of the addresses printed on the labels were fake. At least three addresses we have visited based on complaints and addresses printed on labels have turned out to be residential houses," said designated food safety officer R Kathiravan.

"We plan to trace the manufacturers by first finding the retail outlets or shops that sell such ghee or roadside eateries that use them, and then trace the retailers and distributors and crackdown the manufacturer," added another food safety official.

Officials say that many small players' clients are mainly small shops in the outskirts of the city, roadside eateries or lesser known bakery product manufacturers. "Most well-known restaurants and departmental stores sell only well-known ghee brands, so it's the smaller players who buy unbranded ghee," said another official.

Food safety officials say fake ghee manufacturers often function from small homes or godowns and often place vanaspati between large cubes of butter. "They often place vanaspati at the middle and bottom of the cube, such that only a layer on top and the sides is actually butter," says Kathiravan. "This is dangerous because Vanaspati contains 200% more trans fat than butter which is unhealthy," he says. They say that such cubes have 20% pure butter, compared to the 100% it is supposed to contain.

Food safety officials suspect a nexus between owners of homes and ghee manufacturers. "They probably have an agreement to use the place as a registered address and ensure all communication reaches the address," said a food safety officer. "But when we go there the owner acts surprised and helpless saying his address is being misused," he adds. "A ghee manufacturing unit is not found in the immediate locality even," he says.