SHEIKHUPURA: A top brand selling bread and other confectionery item across Pakistan had its factory sealed on the orders of Punjab Food Minister Bilal Yasin here in Sheikhupura city of Punjab.
The ARY News’ ‘Zimmedar Kaun‘ team along with Punjab Food Minister Bilal Yasin raided the production unit of a top confectionery brand- which sells bread, burgers, buns, rusk and cake-rusk biscuits across Pakistan- and were shocked to find open violation of food safety regulations by a brand of such stature.
As the Zimmedar Kuan team along with the minister entered the production unit, they were greeted rusk and cakes in dirty utensils with workers at the unit touching them with their bare hands.
The minister was astonished to see some workers putting eatables on floor. As the two teams moved forward, they saw a man using bare hands and another dirty utensil to prepare cakes. He was of the view that he is disgusted by the clear violation of food safety standards by a brand which he himself used to trust before today.
Not only that, in clear violation of safety standards, tap water and sub-standard oil was being used to prepare the eatables supplied across the country.
The biggest surprise was that, despite the presence of a food technologist inside the unit, expired eggs were about to be used to prepare the confectionery item. The food technologist, however, claimed that the they were about to send the eggs back to the supplier but it was not mentioned anywhere upon or around the egg cartons.
The minister, on his part, told the food technologist that no matter what their intention was but they cannot put expired item inside the production unit.
As the team moved ahead and reached the brand’s bread production section, they again saw unclean conditions and bare hands touching bread before packing. The worker overseeing the bread cutting operation near the cutting machine accepted before ARY News that the condition of the unit is not fit for an eatable’s production.
The containers used to keep cakes and bread were so dusty, the food minister said that one has to Google the thing as it cannot be called dust but years of dirt and need a separate term to define the condition.
The production unit was thus sealed and the management was warned to ensure hygienic environment in the unit.
HERE IS THE VIDEO OF THE FULL SHOW
