The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has decided to intensify the crackdown against the sale of adulterated edible oil with a pan-India surveillance of both branded and unbranded products.
In a statement, the food safety authority said that a nationwide quality survey was been carried out for the first time on August 25-27. Over 4,500 samples were collected covering a total of 16 varieties of edible oils including mustard, coconut, palm, olive and blended oils.
The FSSAI said in a statement on Friday: “A comprehensive strategy for testing of these samples through the State Food Testing Laboratories or FSSAI notified food testing labs (including private NABL accredited) to analyse various parameters including fatty Acid composition as well as adulteration or harmful or extraneous substance/ chemical, has been developed. The test results are expected in a month’s time,” the official statement added.
The samples have been drawn from hypermarkets and supermarkets and retail and grocery stores including national and local brands. The surveillance and samples collection exercise was undertaken by State food safety department officials, in-line with the procedures and SOPs set down by the FSSAI.
“Various hilly and difficult terrains such as Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh, Daman and Diu as well as Andaman (UT) have been strategically included to be a part of this exercise so as to represent a holistic distribution of the sample size across the country,” the FSSAI said.
“The final survey results will help in identification of the key hot spots for adulteration of edible oils and will strengthen efforts at the State/UT level in devising targeted enforcement drives in the coming months,” the official statement added.
The FSSAI said that this exercise has been undertaken to ensure availability of pure and safe mustard and other edible vegetable oils in the country. In the past, the FSSAI had conducted a pan-India survey to check on the quality of milk.