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Following INFOSAN alert, FSSAI warns against sale of contaminated food
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Thursday, 28 December, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Shraddha Joshi, Mumbai
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The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country’s apex food regulator, has issued an order warning businesses and consumers against the sale and consumption of contaminated food after it received an alert from the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) with regards to the contamination of infant milk formula with Salmonella Agona.
The formula has been manufactured by France’s Lactalis Group, and its symptoms include abdominal cramps, diarrhoea and fever.
According to INFOSAN, French authorities recently advised the withdrawal and recall of 12 batches of the implicated product. A few days later, the recall was expanded to over 600 batches that were manufactured between February and December 2017.
They identified 40 countries to whom the affected product was imported and were being informed about the Salmonella infection.
These include Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, China, Congo, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon, Georgia, Greece, Guinea, Haiti, Hong Kong SAR (China), Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, Taiwan (China), Togo, the Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and Yemen.
As per the FSSAI notice, there was no report of any import of the contaminated infant formula product to India, yet there could be a possibility of this product reaching the consumers through online sales or by other means. Therefore, a notice has been issued to the public and various stakeholders, so that any inadvertent consumption of the infected products is avoided.
Action on sale of creatine monohydrate
Meanwhile, it has come to the notice of FSSAI that creatine monohydrate (used as a product or an ingredient) is being manufactured, imported and sold illegally by various companies and e-commerce platforms under different brand names with or without a valid FSSAI license number.
It is important to note that no standards has been prescribed so far under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 for creatine monohydrate.
However, it had come to FSSAI’s notice that some food business operators (FBOs) having valid food licenses issued by licensing authorities are selling food products containing creatine monohydrate, which is an illegal and unauthorised practice.
The regulator issued a letter mentioning the details of companies and sellers, including e-commerce sites to food safety commissioners of states and Union Territories (UTs) and authorised officers to keep a check on the sale of such products as food in their area of jurisdiction, by inspecting the premises of the firms and verify if any product having creatine monohydrate is being manufactured, stored or sold by firms.
The letter stated that if found guilty, appropriate action will be taken against the defaulting FBOs using the FSSAI license numbers on the labels of the products and selling them as food under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
FSSAI also decided to issue notices to such e-commerce sites wherein such products are available for sale.
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