Hyderabad: The sleuths of the Hyderabad Food Adulteration Surveillance Team (H-FAST), a few days ago, held a meeting with various dairy suppliers from Maharashtra, Haryana and Telangana to warn them about adulteration in paneer and khova.Officials said that a large quantity of dairy products is arriving in Hyderabad without proper packaging or requisite labelling. “In the meeting, key dairy suppliers and receivers were informed about the rampant adulteration in dairy products, especially paneer and khova, which are sold loose. They were warned of facing criminal cases if they do not comply with the upcoming standard operating procedure (SOP),” H-FAST inspector Ranjit Goud told TOI. These businessmen have storage centres on the city outskirts, which are used as transit points.The SOP will make it mandatory to sell edible products with labels providing information on the manufacturing date, expiry date and ingredients used.At present, many edible products are being sold loose at lower prices. Recently in Mangalhat, police conducted searches at an illegal storage unit that had meat stored for more than six months. “When we recovered the meat from the bottom of the refrigerator, it was stinking and full of fungus. As per procedure, supply should follow the First In, First Out principle. However, many businessmen involved in the sale of frozen meat are not adhering to this. They ignore stock stored at the bottom and move items from the top. These godowns, in fact, supply bulk quantities to various purchasers,” police said.
