Vijayawada: Officials crackdown on ghee, oil adulterating units

Vijayawada: Officials of the department of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and Vigilance conducted raids on various restaurants and adulterated ghee manufacturing units across Vijayawada on Tuesday.

They noticed that these manufacturing units are resorting to adulteration and supply of low quality materials. The officials also noticed that some restaurants are using banned chemicals to increase the taste of food items.

FSSAI regional food controller N Purnachandra Rao and some officials from the two departments made surprise checks on the Paradise Restaurant near Benz Circle, Sri Anjaneya Restaurant, Barkat Restaurant in Besant road and Milap Hotel in Panja centre.

During the inspection, the officials noticed poor sanitation conditions in Sri Anjaneya and Barkat restaurants in Besant Road. Unhygienic conditions prevailed in kitchen, storage room and refrigerator and other places. They collected samples from some dishes and will send for lab tests. Non-vegetarian food items were made of poor quality ingredients.

Similarly, officials also made raids on Venkateswara Oil traders in Ajit Singh Nagar, Nandini food products in Indira Naik Nagar, Bharathi Ghee traders and Lakshmi Sai Oil Traders in Old Raja Rajeswaripet and seized edible oils and ghee made of low quality. These include loose groundnut oil worth Rs 23,000, 65kgs of groundnut kernels, 70 kgs of palmolein oil, 193 litres of cow ghee, 700 litres of buffalo ghee and 62 kgs of vegan ghee.

The officials informed the media that ghee is made of very low-quality ingredients and products are harmful to the consumers. Officials said that all the samples would be sent to FSSAI lab for testing and stern action would be taken against the culprits involved in the adulteration.