Bhubaneswar: From April to June, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has dumped 132 kg of stale food seized during surprise raids. Nineteen samples of food that were sent to laboratory for testing returned positive for contamination and unsafe.“Contamination of food was found in items such as pickle, fast food, pani puri and dahibara aloo dum, and at most roadside eateries and hotels besides some grocery shops,” said designated food safety officer Satyajit Patel.“We have registered cases under the food safety act and served improvement notices on 50 shops. In three months, we trashed 132 kg of various kinds of food found unfit for consumption,” said Patel.He said the food safety squad conducted massive surprise raids at roadside eateries, restaurants, hotels, juice and fruit stalls, and namkeen manufacturing units, dumping items on grounds of substandard cooking, staleness or using artificial colours.“In three months, 288 samples were collected during 207 inspections conducted in Bhubaneswar,” said Patel.The BMC’s food safety squad is alert about food being served to people at hotels, restaurants and varieties of eateries, including water quality, materials used in cooking food and check on storage.The squad is checking the fruit juice stalls this time because they received complaints regarding preservatives and chemical colours being used. Despite generating awareness, shops are selling stale food and making them using artificial colour, Patel added.BMC officials said the mobile food safety laboratory team, the sanitation and hygiene inspection for neat environment (SHINE) team, and the food enforcement squads are conducting joint inspections. The SHINE team was formed in Aug 2023 to provide more teeth to sanitation.BMC officials said the usual practice is keeping leftover food on a given day until night for mixing with freshly cooked food, which may cause health issues among customers.The teams also plan to generate awareness among roadside eateries during monsoon since such food can cause diarrhoea and dysentery.
