News
Plans to prevent public being duped over food this New Year
Authorities are working to ensure that bad food does not enter the market next month when the rush of food-buying for the New Year season prompts corrupt sellers to flood the market with products that are spoiled and past their use-by date.
The Consumer Affairs Authority’s Deputy Director of Regional Affairs, Asela Bandara, said that a large amount of tainted food products are normally put on sale during the New Year season.
Adulterated condiments found during a raid in Colombo recently. (file pic)
“We are formulating an April plan for the protection of all consumers. All irregularities during the sale process will be addressed and legal action will be taken against the offenders,” Mr. Bandara said.
The Deputy Director explained that last year the raids were conducted to find dodgy products that were on shelves. “But this year we are working on stopping such unfit consumer products from going to markets. We want to ensure that people get the best product for amount they are paying for it,” he said.
The CAA carried out nearly 4400 raids this year with 651 of them conducted in this month.
Mr. Bandara said that in most of this year’s raids the CAA had found that prices had been changed on the packaging by the retailer.
On Monday (March 10) the CAA seized 1750kg of coriander unfit for human consumption from a warehouse in Kotahena.
“The coriander was in very poor condition. There was fungus on it and it was also insect-ridden. We got to know that the warehouse owners were planning to sell the coriander in powder form to make curry powder during the April festive season,” Mr. Bandara said.
The CAA is to file a court case against the owners next week.
On Wednesday, officers raided a warehouse in Ganepola, in the Gampaha area, where outdated curry powder was being repacked. Mr. Bandara said that 60,000 kg of the powder, which had passed its expiry date in January, was imported from Pakistan.
“It was repacked without any details such as expiry date and date of manufacture,” he said. Following a court case the owner of the warehouse was fined Rs. 20,000 and given a six-month jail term suspended for five years. The stock was ordered destroyed.
Among the raids conducted this year the most notable were reported from Colombo, Pettah, Kaduwela and Kaduwela.
On February 14 the CAA raided a warehouse in Colombo 12 where cumin seeds were mixed with sathakuppa, an abortifacient. The stock contained around 22,000kg of the mixture. The person who was running the warehouse was produced before the courts.
Some 5000kg of adulterated chilli and turmeric powder that had been mixed with fabric dye was seized from a warehouse in Pettah on February 13. Goods from the warehouse were being sold to retailers in Colombo and other areas.
In the same month, CAA officials raided a store in Kaduwela where Tom Tom brand infant food was being repacked and sold despite the food being past its expiry date.
Other products seized this year include expired hair dye worth 1200, 000 rupees from Grandpass,1000,000 kilograms of outdated sugar from Modara and 12 tons of spoiled rice from Wattala.