PFA seals five juice factories over adulteration in Punjab

LAHORE: In a province-wide crackdown against adulteration, the Punjab Food Authority on Wednesday sealed five juice factories for producing juices of different popular brands in different areas of the province.

Acceding to a statement issued by the Directorate General Public Relations, the provincial food regulatory body has recovered 1,344 litres hazardous juice, 525 litres fake soft drinks and 5,300 empty boxes during the raids.

Five gas cylinders, three filling machines, storage tank, fake labels and other raw material were confiscated by PFA, the statement said and added that the authority also discarded a huge quantity of loose colours and chemicals.

PFA Director General Captain (retd) Muhammad Usman said that authority shut down a factory in Muridke, on the charges of refilling bottles in the different brands of carbonated drinks and making spurious bottles with chemicals and contaminated water. He said that PFA registered a case against the factory owner in a nearby police station.

He said that PFA closed down the juice factories for preparing juices with artificial flavours and chemicals.

Earlier, the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) on May 4 had recovered more than 500 litre counterfeit milk, banaspati ghee and raw material during a raid in Pak Pattan.

The PFA had raided the counterfeit milk manufacturing unit on directive of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. He had directed for crackdown on food adulteration.

The director general PFA had imposed heavy fine on vermicelli manufacturing unit for abundance of insects.