Mumbai: The state Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided a Turbhe packaging facility, along with the police, and seized 4,942 cartons of expired food items worth more than Rs 75 lakh of major brands whose manufacturing and expiry dates that been tampered with for resale, officials said on Monday.During inspections conducted between August 24 and 29 at Sadhana Enterprises in Turbhe, Navi Mumbai, it was found that partners Jayprakash Sanchatiram Singh and Jaya Navarang Bahadur Singh were storing food products from various export companies and allegedly carrying out tampering during repacking and labelling.FDA officials said this involved erasing the date of manufacture and expiry or use-by date on the original packaging of food items and printing new dates over them. They added that new stickers were pasted over the original ingredients and nutritional information of certain food items.The food products found at the establishment included potato chips and snacks such as Lay’s, Kurkure, and Bingo, alongside Maggi instant noodles, ready-to-eat items, Hellmann’s mayonnaise, and canned soft drinks like Thums Up and Limca.Joint Commissioner (Food) Santosh Kamble said these items were in circulation within the country and were also exported to other countries. The associated export firms include Aarnika Export (Noida), Novas Export (Mulund), Joshi Brothers (Ghatkopar), Beyond Export (Malad), Jamnadas Ruttonsy & Co. (Fort), Span Impex (Mumbai), Kasturi (Andheri), Angad Export (Chembur), Bharat International (Delhi), and Anika Export (Delhi).
