Expired meat recovered from restaurant's 'secret store room' in Karachi

KARACHI: Sindh Food Authority (SFA) on Tuesday recovered at least 80 kilograms of expired meat from a top restaurant’s “secret store room” in Karachi, ARY News reported.

According to ARY News correspondent, the restaurant which was sealed a day ago after two children died of food poisoning, had its “secret store room” raided by SFA officers earlier today.

At least 80 kilograms of expired meat and food additives were found from the secret godown.

Director SFA Abrar Sheikh told ARY News that during the first raid, he asked the outlet manager if there was another godown or dumping area other than the one attached with the restaurant, but he denied.

“We then kept them under surveillance and were given information that the restaurant staff is moving some stuff from their outlet, upon which we conducted a raid and found out that they have a secret godown in an apartment building nearby,” said Abrar Sheikh.

He revealed that the SFA team found at least 70 kilograms of expired beef and other stale food items from their store room.

“Expired meat and food additives have been recovered. We have taken samples and they will be sent to the laboratory for examination,” said Abrar Sheikh.

A video of the raid shows a raw meat packet from the year 2014 and a date from year 2015 mentioned as expiration date.

When asked about his department’s overall performance, the SFA director said that his organization is a few months old and cannot be compared with Punjab or Khyber Pakhtunkwa’s food regulatory authority.

It is yet to be determined if the same meat or food additives were used for making the food which led to the death of two minors.

On November 11, the same restaurant was sealed after two minor brothers died after dining at the eatery and consuming sweets from a shop in an amusement park.