Health Department collects 200 food samples

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 26

With the festival season on, the Health Department has tightened its noose around the sweetmeat sellers and those dealing in the sale of ghee and khoya.

This month, the health team, headed by district health officer, Dr Rajesh Garg, has seized about 200 suspected adulterated food samples. The samples consist mainly of ghee, milk, sweets, edible oil and various milk products.

“The checking of all prominent food business operators involved in sweets, milk and milk products, oils, multinational restaurants, multinational grocery outlets is on the priority list of the checking teams,” said Dr Garg.

During the drive, about 12 quintals of spurious ghee had been seized and about 200kg of sweets, suspected to be prepared by using unpermitted colours, had been destroyed by the food teams.

All seized samples have been sent to the state food laboratory for further analysis and further strict action would be taken against the violators under the Food Safety and Standards Act.

Food business operators have been warned to use food grade colours for sweet preparation, to keep the workshop area neat and clean and to maintain personal hygiene of the staff deployed in the food business,” added the DHO.