DINAKARAN NEWS

20 quintals sub-standard sweets, kalakand seized

Jaipur: The police on Saturday seized 20 quintals of sub-standard kalakand (milk cake) and sweets from a vehicle at Kotputli. The products were allegedly made of soyabean oil.

Health department officials said that the truck had been coming from Khairtal and heading towards Phulera. The police intercepted the vehicle and immediately informed the health department officials. The team of food safety officers reached the spot immediately to check its quality.

Health department officials said that the seized kalakand is adulterated. It is sold at Rs130 per kg to retailers. The retailers sold it at Rs350 per kg.

Officials said that it should be made of only milk and sugar. But, in this case, it is suspected that the manufacturer has used soyabean oil and skimmed milk powder. "We have collected samples of kalakand and sent it to laboratory for testing," the official said.

Transpiration of Kalakand in huge quantity in a truck put it in suspicion. The police suspected that it requires a lot of milk to produce such a huge quality of kalakand.

Earlier, food safety officers inspected mawa manufacturing units in Chitwari in Chomu area and collected seven samples.

It took almost whole day for the health department officials to inspect the mawa manufacturing units in the village as almost each and every house in the village is engaged in producing mawa.

A health department official said that Chitwari is a village, which has 900 houses. "We have taken seven samples of mawa from Chitwari," a health department official said.

However, officials claimed that they have not found any evidences of adulteration in the mawa during the inspection but they have taken the samples for quality testing.

The food safety officers were conducting inspection when they received information from the Kotputli police about the vehicle carrying 20tons of Kalakand.

Chitwari village totally depends on mawa production. Almost each house in the village is linked to mawa production.

The prominent markets for Chitwari village are Jaipur, Chomu and also some places in Sikar. The daily requirement of mawa in Jaipur is approximately 60,000 kg. Chitwari supply around 15-20,000 kg.

Profiteering traders fined Rs 50K in Ganderbal

The court of Additional Deputy Commissioner-cum- Adjudicating Officer Syed Shahnawaz Bukhari under the Food Safety Act on Saturday imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on a number of traders for violating the Food Safety and Standards Act-2006.

The ADC warned all the stake holders who are involved with food business to desist such practices in future and directed the concerned authorities to conduct market checking on daily basis to monitor whether hygienic and quality food is made available to the general public.

“We have imposed fine of nearly fifty thousand rupees to various business operators for violating food safety standard act,” the ADC told Greater Kashmir, adding that the fine was imposed while deciding several cases lodged before the said court in last few months.

FBOs told to comply with 5% trans fatty acids limit; pkg date extended

Mumbai: The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), in its recent direction, has asked food business operators (FBOs) to comply with maximum limits of trans fatty acids to 5% by weight as prescribed earlier by the regulator while allowing to use existing stocks of the packaging material for next six months upto June 30.

The notification in this regard was published in the month of May last year which was extended upto August, further to February 17. The direction stated, “After due consideration of representations received from the stakeholders, requesting for deferment of implementation of the said regulation for the purpose of utilising the existing stock of their packaging material, the time line for compliance of Notification No. 1 (94) 2015/ Notification P&L/ Enf/ FSSAI dated May 25, 2016, is hereby further extended upto June 30, 2017.”

Meanwhile, the direction with regard to compliance to maximum limits of the trans fatty acids, stated, “Food business operators shall comply with the Notification No. 4/1505/30/2011 dated August 4, 2015, with respect to maximum limit of trans fatty acids as not more than 5% by weight with effect from February 28, 2017.”

Atul Chaturvedi, president, Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA), said, “The regulator has addressed major concern again with allowing usage of packaging material. Several major brands have filed their representations with the regulator and regulator has always been considering industry views. The last extension which regulator gave came with a charge fee that has to be paid to enable extension which ensured that industry players which are filing representations are really affected with the amendments in the law.”

“The limit of total trans fatty acids is a healthy move which is actually a trend recently. People are moving towards healthy products. Soon will be the time when brands will have a healthy edition of the products like chips and usual snacks. The regulator, on this instance has stated that it wants brands to serve healthier products. I am sure that the food industry will definitely comply with the direction,” he added.

A source from FSSAI said that the established brands which are few in number are filing representations as they are the ones who stock bulk printed packaging material. He also held that the small players will not be able to pay every month the charges for using existing packaging material and small players have small area of operation.

Moreover, the extension will cost the charge or the fee as directed by FSSAI in its last direction regarding use of existing stocks of the packaging material.