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Amul Milk on Friday said its product carries the brand’s name and the report about carbonate compound being found in its milk samples was misleading.
“The sample of raw loose milk collected by the Food Safety Officer was from a remote village away from our processing plant. At Amul, raw milk goes through a four-level quality check, which enables us to detect any deviation in milk quality easily and such milk is rejected and never enters into Amul system,” it said in a statement.
The statement added that Amul Milk has come across the notice of the food safety officer — dated June 4 and received on June 9 — regarding a sample collected from a village-level collection centre failing the test. But the company will not comment on it, as the matter was sub-judice, it said.
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Managing Director (Amul) R S Sodhi told The Indian Express over phone: “We collect milk from 18,000 villages. This sample was picked at one collection centre. As it is, the milk has not entered Amul system, where we have at least four levels of checks. There are rejections at the entry level too.”
“Therefore, this perception must be corrected and this sample should not be called the Amul Milk sample. The four checks are at the stage of accepting the milk, after processing it, at the time of delivery in the morning and random pick-ups from shops to ascertain that there is no compromise on quality at any stage,” he added.
On June 12, The Indian Express had reported that a sample has been collected from a village-level collection centre by the Food Safety Department in Fatehpur and the Lucknow-based lab has found carbonate compounds in it. The authorities concerned had then decided to go for more tests and collected samples at the chilling and mixing plant.
Fatehpur District Food Safety Incharge, Rajesh Dwivedi — who had collected the sample — had told The Indian Express on Thursday: “The test reports came on June 1. They showed that carbonate compound was found in the milk. It could be sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate. Usually, this compound is used to enhance the shelf life of milk by preventing it from turning sour for a longer period.”
Asked whether the compound was found way beyond the permissible limit, Dwivedi had said: “That is beyond our purview. The rules are very clear in case of packaged milk. Nothing can be mixed in it, not even water. The reason is that it is given to the infants from a young age.”