14 food samples collected during Diwali fail quality test

JAIPUR: Fourteen samples of food including sweets, mawa and edible oil failed quality test in the city, which were taken during a campaign launched ahead of Diwali. Health department has issued notices to the owners of shops and factories, which produced the food items failed quality test.
Officials said that they have given one month time to them to appeal for re-testing of food samples. They said that if the samples failed even in re-testing, they will produce challan in the court against the traders and shopkeepers for selling food items which are unsafe and sub-standard.
According to the health department officials, they had collected 61 samples of food items during 10-day campaign against food adulteration ahead of Diwali festival. The campaign was launched by the health department in all the districts of the state.
Out of the 14 samples tested for quality, four of them were found to be "unsafe" for human consumption. Besides, there were 10 other food samples which were found of sub-standard quality. In Jaipur, four samples of edible oil and milk cake failed the quality test.
Officials said on October 21, they had unearthed a factory of edible oil which was selling branded oil without Agmark standard. The factory was also manufacturing duplicate of famous edible oil in Paota in Jaipur district. The food inspectors had found that the company was producing edible oil and packaging it for selling it in the open market.
Sample of edible oil taken on October 21, has also failed quality test and the laboratory has categorised as unsafe for human consumption. The health department has issued notice to the factory owner after the test report revealed that samples taken failed quality test.
Out of four food samples categorised as unsafe for human consumption, three were of edible oil and one was a sample of milk cake."Milk cake should be made of milk cream but we found that it was made of refined soyabean oil and also there was starch in it," the official said.
Besides, there were five samples of mawa which were categorized as substandard. "There should be at least 30% fat in mawa, but the samples which were categorized as substandard do not have 30% fat. They have less fat. Also, there were four samples of sweets which were found to be substandard. One edible oil samples was also tested as substandard," the official said.
Health department issued notices to their owners, which allegedly produced the unsafe and substandard food items.