Food authority bans freezing of milk in ice factories

Factory owners told to get licences or face action

RAWALPINDI: The provincial food authority has banned freezing milk in ice factories in a bid to stop the sale of stale and adulterated milk.

Moreover, the PFA has remained firm on a ban imposed on the sale of loose spices in markets.

To stop the supply of adulterated milk in the province, the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has devised steps to stop freezing adulterated milk in ice factories and has banned the practice of storing milk by freezing them in blocks meant for water.



Moreover, the PFA has made it mandatory for ice factories to acquire a licence and to install chillers. Hereafter, any ice factory found operating without a licence will be sealed.

Moreover, the authority said that they will be strictly implementing the pasteurization law to eliminate the supply of adulterated milk.

Loose spices

Traders from Ganj Mandi in Rawalpindi met with the PFA Director General Muhammad Usman on Wednesday to review the requirement to sell spices in sealed packets.

The delegation of Ganj Mandi Traders Union also discussed the adulteration mafia in the market.

Usman said that since other provinces were also adopting similar practices, Rawalpindi’s traders would face no difficulty in trading with other provinces.

Moreover, he said that if they packed spices, it would automatically expose those merchants who are involved in adulteration and this would exclusively benefit the ones who are not.



Further, he pledged to take action against those involved in adulteration.

Food workers tested

The PFA has released an annual report of its labs for 2018 which state that they screened some 47,671 food workers.

Of these, some 4,017 people were found afflicted with different diseases. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2019.