Cooked food stored for next day seized from restaurants

Trichy: Eating-out during weekends remains one of the few options for the city folk to get away from their routines. But, the latest raid by the food safety and drug administration department on a few restaurants in the city exposed the unhygenic conditions prevailed in the eateries and the quality of food there.

As a part of a routine search, the team carried out checks at the restaurants in Cantonment area on Thursday. The quality check at a restaurant in the area unearthed cooked mutton, chicken, rice and parotta stored in a freezer.

“We got information that many non-vegetarian restaurants were using old and stale meat. During our raid, we found cooked food stored in a freezer to be used for the next day. They are preparing fast food items with the meat and supplying it to the customers unmindful of the health hazards,” designated officer (DO) of food safety department Dr S Chithra said.

The search continued in eight shops in the area and the team seized more than 15kg of meat kept in the cold storage. The food safety officials (FSOs) said that they found old meat in all the shops. “Hence, we are advising people to check their food before consuming it,” said Chithra.