Five juice factories sealed across Punjab

Food safety teams deputed at markets to ensure provision of healthy food items

LAHORE: Continuing the crackdown against food adulterators across Punjab, food safety teams from the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) sealed five factories producing substandard juices.

The provincial food regulatory body recovered 1,344 litres of hazardous juice, 525 litres of substandard soft drinks and 5,300 empty boxes during the raids. Five gas cylinders, three filling machines, a storage tank, fake labels and other raw materials were confiscated by the authority. The authority also discarded a large quantity of loose colours and chemicals.

One of the factories, sealed by the authority in Muridke, was charged for refilling bottles of carbonated drinks and for producing spurious juices using chemicals and contaminated water. Moreover, PFA officials sealed juice factories in Sahiwal and Okara for preparing juices using artificial flavours, loose colours and chemicals.

PFA has registered a case against the factory owners at the nearest police station.

Meanwhile, PFA Director General Muhammad Usman directed food safety teams to be more active and continue round the clock inspection of fruits, vegetables, pulses and other essential commodities at Ramazan bazars. He also directed that special teams be constituted to monitor suspicious activities of shopkeepers and food business operators during Ramazan.

These directions were issued by Director Usman while presiding over a meeting attended by heads of PFA operation and vigilance wing at his office on Wednesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2019.