35 000 litres of ghee seized Jaipur factory sealed over suspected adulteration

Jaipur, Nov 3 (PTI) Food safety officials have seized around 35,000 litres of ghee and sealed a manufacturing and packaging factory in Jaipur on Tuesday over suspected adulteration and other irregularities.

     A food safety team inspected the factory of Himalaya Dairy Products under the state government's 'Shuddh Aahar-Milawat Par Vaar' campaign against food adulteration.

     During the inspection, officials found ghee being packed under seven different brand names -- Rajasthan Saras, Dairy Brothers, Shri Kiran Saras, Matula, Choice Dairy, Raghu Shri and Ganak.

     The ghee was stored in packages ranging from 200 ml to 15 litres, while thousands of litres were kept in large storage silos.

     Officials said a suspicious flavouring substance was also recovered from the premises. It had allegedly been concealed under the label of a chemical used for cleaning.

     Samples of the ghee and the suspected flavouring substance were collected and sent for laboratory testing.

     The department is examining whether artificial flavouring agents were used in the ghee and whether the product was adulterated.

     Officials said the factory's food licence was not displayed on the premises during the inspection.

     Following the detection of suspected irregularities, the entire factory, including its manufacturing and packaging units, was sealed.

     In a separate operation early Tuesday morning, food safety teams inspected four dairy and mawa manufacturing units in Morija and Cheethwadi areas in the district.

     The teams inspected Shakar Dula Mawa Paneer Bhandar, AKD Enterprises and SDS Mawa Paneer.

     Samples of milk and mawa were collected from the units for laboratory testing.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)