Shop Selling Adulterated Sauce Busted In Cuttack, Owner Detained

In a major crackdown on establishments manufacturing or selling adulterated food, the police busted a shop selling adulterated sauce in Malgodam area of Cuttack on Thursday. 

A huge stock of tomato and chilli sauce packed in bottles has been seized, police said.

Acting on a tip off, police along with civic officials carried out a raid at the shop in the afternoon and confiscated the stock.

Food Safety Inspector Pratiksha Dash, who was part of the raiding team, said that the ingredients written over the sauce bottles sold by the shop were a combination of potato starch and other materials. “There is an abnormal use of colour used in the manufacture of the sauce,” she said.

The police have identified the manufacturing unit to a location in 42 Mouzas. “We detected the manufacturing unit from where the shop owner bought the product and will bust the unit soon,” SN Muduli, ACP, Cuttack Zone 1.

Meanwhile, another food safety official said that the shopkeeper claims to have started business two months ago. “But we have already published a notification earlier stating that food safety compliance license is a must before doing business,” he said.

He said strict action will be initiated by the food safety department against the shop owners dealing with adulterated products to gain more profits.

When asked about the frequent entry of duplicate materials into the city, CMC health team’s food inspector said, “In a short span of time we have conducted raids on 8-10 sauce manufacturing unit and forced them to leave the city. We are receiving information that they are operating from the city outskirts. We will soon go after them.”

Notably, several adulterated food processing units had been unearthed during a series of crackdowns launched by the Commissionerate Police in Cuttack.

In August last year, the joint enforcement squad of Commissionerate Police and Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) had busted a fake Gutkha manufacturing unit in the city.