Unhygienic food: ‘Flour mills fined for supplying substandard flour’

Mills fined for supplying flour with moisture content.

FAISALABAD:

Some flourmills have been supplying substandard wheat flour The Express Tribune has learnt.

Assistant Food Controller Muhammad Shafi said the Food Department had collected 244 samples of flour from mills in the division during the last four months and had sent them to a laboratory for analysis. Of those samples, 71 were found substandard on account of excessive moisture. The department had imposed a fine of Rs157,000 each on 25 flourmills in November 2012, Rs229,000 each on 35 flourmills in December and Rs96,000 on 11 flourmills each in January. The lab report for samples collected from 80 flourmills in February had not been received as yet.

Flourmills Association Vice Chairman Khalid Bashir said the flour supplied from the Food Department’s own godowns had a high moisture content.

The wheat stored by the department is sprayed with pesticide and flourmills have to wash that off before they grind it. That is how moisture content in the flour increases, he said. Bashir said wheat from outdoor storage too already had a high moisture content.

“We sent an application to the Food Department challenging the lab results but they rejected it,” Bashir said, “We will have to take the matter to a court.”

Shafi said flourmills were allowed to supply flour with a moisture ratio of up to 14.5 per cent. He said flour with a moisture level greater than that was unhygienic.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2013.