THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Impostors are proving to be a headache for Kerafed. The state government agency has warned the public to be on guard against adulterated coconut oil sporting ‘Kera’ tag flooding the market, especially ahead of Onam.
Many of these brands bear the tag ‘Kera’ in some form or the other, duping the public to take them for the trademarked ‘Kerafed Kera’ brand, Kerafed chairman J Venugopalan Nair said. “The ‘imitators’ are conquering the Kerala market by copying the font, sachet design and further confusing the consumer by making minor changes to the name,” he said.
A majority of these brands flow into Kerala from neighbouring Tamil Nadu, he said. More than 100 such brands are being sold Kerala with impunity. “The Cochin Oil Merchants Association said there was large-scale adulteration in them,” he said. “Informal figures show that 200 tankers of this so-called coconut oil are transported to Kerala every day,” he said.
There is an element of truth in Venugopalan Nair’s charges. Of the 45 brands banned by the Food Safety Commissioner on June 1 following tests, the names of 20 included either the tags ‘Kera,’ ‘Keram’ or ‘Kerala’ which can be easily mistaken for the Kerafed own brand ‘Kera.’
Last month, when Kerafed sold one litre of coconut oil for `240, the fake oil brands were sold for prices as low as `160, he said. Coconut oil forms only a fraction of the volume of these fake brands. The rest is made up of liquid paraffin, US kerosene, mineral oil and white palm oil, he said.