The Hindu Business Line : Spices Board to take up Sudan dye issue with EU at Spain meet

CONCERNED over the frequent rapid alert notifications from the European Union on the alleged presence of Sudan 1 - 4 in chilli consignments, the Spices Board is to take up the issue at the European Spice Association meeting to be held from June 2 to 3 in Spain.

Many of these notifications turned out to be wrong following laboratory tests at different places. Mr C.J. Jose, Chairman of the Board, would present these issues at the meeting and hold discussions with the authorities there on the need for standardised equipments and analytical methods for accurate assessment of the presence of Sudan 1.

There are sufficient proofs that the EU authorities were issuing rapid alert notifications without thorough laboratory tests. As a result, they had to withdraw such notifications recently.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Jose said many of the reports from the European Union on the presence of prohibited carcinogenic dye Sudan-1 in Indian chilli consignments, except the initial two rapid alert reports received from France in May last year, were not true.

He said given the colour values of Indian varieties of chillies adulteration in excess of few grams per kg will be required to covert the varieties with low colour value to high colour value varieties.

"Therefore, reported presence of Sudan 1 in 2000 ppm or below cannot lead to perceptible colour changes in the product, cannot be deliberate nor result of adulteration but attributable to other reasons such as absence of standardised methods or analysis, equipment defects or false positives," he pointed out.

There could be variations and hence there should have to be minimum tolerant levels, he said.

He said that the European Union was inventing new problems. The Board had been using the High Performance Liquid Chromotograph (HPLC) method, a system of French Health Authorities, which could detect up to 10ppm.

This was later improved by standardisation to detect up to 5ppm. But the European Union now wanted the Board to set up a method HPLCMS, which could detect parts per billion levels.

"We have already placed orders for it costing around Rs 1.5 crore and it would be in place soon at the Board's headquarters here," he said. Besides, it would cost around Rs 5 crore per annum for analysing the samples, though the industry would partly share it, he pointed out.

According to Mr Jose, analytical tests conducted at different laboratories had shown negative results or the presence of Sudan 1 at even below the acceptable levels. "This could be because the machines could have a margin of error. Why should one add one g of Sudan 1 in one tonne of chilli", he asked.

Even the European Spice Association in a letter addressed to the European Commission has said that "as far as we know, there is no validated analytical method for determination of Sudan colours in food.

This has led to many false-positive results and the destruction of products, which were fit for human consumption. These economic losses damage the industry without having any benefit for the consumer".

Mr Jose said based on the first report from France for the presence of Sudan Red of 3.8 to 4.6 g per kg in hot chilli pepper exported by two Mumbai-based exporters, the Board had suspended the certificate of registration of the involved exporters in June 2003 and introduced mandatory sampling and analysis for Sudan 1 of chilli and chilli products irrespective of destination of export.

From November 07, 2003 to April 15, 2004 out of 1,878 samples received 1,824 were analysed and the results were "negative", he said.