VIJAYAWADA: If you relish tea at roadside tea stalls, you need to be careful henceforth. Vigilance and Enforcement (V&E) and Food Safety officials have busted a spurious tea powder racket. Acting on a tip-off from a tea stall owner, the officials conducted raids at three places in the city on Monday and seized adulterated tea powder stocks worth around `50 lakh. The tea powder adulterated with sawdust and harmful dyes is being supplied to tea stalls.
In the raids, Venkateswara Tea Company at Machavaram, Radha Tea Company at Suryaraopet and Swathi Enterprises in One Town were found supplying adulterated tea powder to several tea stalls in Krishna and Guntur districts. “We seized adulterated tea powder stocks worth around `50 lakh in the raids. Consumption of tea made with adulterated tea powder will pose serious health hazards,” said Krishna district Assistant Food Controller N Purnachandra Rao.
Explaining the modus operandi of the unscrupulous dealers, he said: “Tea powder is being adulterated with sawdust collected from timber depots. Dyes such as Tartrazine and Sunshine Yellow are also being used for adulteration of tea powder to make it appear authentic. Many consumers are unaware of adulteration of tea powder as it is difficult to identify the malpractice committed by the unscrupulous traders.”
“During investigation, it is found that some traders are sun-drying used tea powder collected from tea stalls and mixing it with chemicals to sell it again as fresh tea powder,” Purnachandra Rao said.
In a related incident, the Food Safety officials conducted raids on a tea stall in Chirala and seized 500 kg of adulterated tea powder. Samples of tea powder were collected from the shops and sent to laboratory for analysis. Stringent action will be taken against the traders selling adulterated tea powder after getting the laboratory reports. The Food Safety officials will also intensify raids to check adulteration of tea powder, Purnachandra Rao said.
Vigilance and Enforcement and Food Safety officials raided an oil company at Kothapet in the city on November 13 and seized 1,745 kg of adulterated ghee FSSAI officials conducted as many as 30 raids in Vijayawada from January to November this year More than 12 raids were conducted on shops and business establishments in Satyanarayanapuram Around 20 cases of adulteration, including ghee, milk and other food products were reported Food Safety officials collected more than 300 samples and sent them to laboratory for analysis Out of the total, more than 60 samples were found adulterated and cases were booked against the adulterators