- The Sindh Food Authority (SFA) ordered a private company to recall 11 of its packaged snack products from the market after laboratory tests deemed them unfit for human consumption.
- The company has been given three days to comply with the recall order, failing which legal action will be taken; the SFA has also asked other provincial food authorities to investigate the issue.
- The company submitted 24 products for registration, and tests conducted at the University of Karachi identified 11 products as not meeting safety and quality standards, posing significant health risks.
The Sindh Food Authority (SFA) has mandated a private company to promptly recall 11 of its packaged snack products from the market after laboratory tests deemed them “unfit” for consumption, as reported on Monday.
“SFA Director General Muzamil Hussain Halepoto announced that the following products—Slanty Vegetable, Snackers Hot Masala, Snackers Pizza, Twitch Classic, Potato Sticks, Cheese Ball Masala, Cheese Balls Cheese, Kai Korean Hot, Kai Spicy Mala, Kai Mala Wok, and Kai Korean Kimchi—have been tested and found unsuitable for human consumption.
Halepoto informed Dawn that he had given the company’s management a three-day deadline to remove these products from the market. Failure to comply would result in legal action.
He also urged other provincial food authorities to investigate the matter within their jurisdictions to safeguard public health.
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Approximately two and a half months prior, the company had submitted 24 products for registration. The SFA sent samples to the Food Testing Laboratory at the University of Karachi’s Department of Food Science and Technology, identifying 11 products as unfit for consumption.
In a letter to the company on Monday, the SFA chief stated that the firm had applied for product registration on March 6 and provided samples for lab testing, inspection, and food safety audit.
“The test reports dated April 19 revealed that the products failed to meet the minimum safety and quality standards, posing a significant health hazard to the public and constituting a serious violation of the law,” the letter reviewed by Dawn noted.
Consequently, under the Sindh Food Authority Act 2016, the SFA chief ordered a “full food recall” due to the severity of health and safety violations, invoking Section S-24 of the Act to prevent a public health crisis.
The company must “immediately withdraw the affected products from the market, cease production and sale, and provide detailed information on the available stock, including location and quantity, to the SFA within three days,” the order stated.
The DG’s order also offers a ‘remedy’ to the company. “If aggrieved by this order, the company may appeal to the SFA Board within one week,” the letter stated.
Additionally, the SFA reserved the right to initiate “further proceedings for any violations and offenses committed under the Act, including penal actions and criminal legal proceedings under the Pakistan Penal Code.”
The company has not yet made any public statement regarding the SFA’s action.
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