When the shopkeeper showed reluctance in giving you the branded coconut oil you sought and tried pushing hitherto unheard brands available at low prices, did it make you wonder why he/ she did it? It may be because adulterated coconut oil brands have flooded the market. Such brands, it is claimed, provide a margin to shopkeepers who push their products. Low-quality coconut oil brands are raking in moolah at a time when prices of coconut and coconut oil have hit an alltime high in Kerala. Sample this: The Cochin Oil Merchants’ Association (COMA) tested the 31 brands it collected from different parts of the state, and found 21 of them were adulterated!
This assumes significance considering the fact the Commissionerate of Food Safety in 2016 banned the production and sale of 14 coconut oil brands in the state which were being re-branded and sold. Paul Antony, COMA secretary, said, “In a lab test conducted in December last year, we identified 17 adulterated brands. A case was filed in the Kerala High Court seeking a directive to curb the practice.” “Later, on the court’s order, we collected samples of 31 coconut oil brands from across the state and subjected them to a test at a private lab in Poonithura near Kochi.
It confirmed 21 of the 31 samples were adulterated. The iodine level in them exceeded 50 per cent. The permissible level is between 7.5 and 10 per cent,” he said. Following this, COMA sent the original copy of the lab report to the Assistant Food Safety Commissioner, Ernakulam, seeking action against erring brands. K V Shibu, Assistant Food Safety Commissioner, Ernakulam, said based on the lab report, the department collected 19 samples and sent them for lab test. “If the samples do not conform to standards under Food Safety Standards (Food products and Food Additive) Regulations 2011, action will be taken against brands under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. We have also sent a copy of the report submitted by COMA to the Food Safety Commissioner, Thiruvananthapuram, as it has statewide implications,” he said.
Antony said when COMA was collecting coconut oil samples, shopkeepers were found pushing low-cost coconut oil brands to customers as the companies provide more margin to shopkeepers. “Moreover, 14 of the 21 adulterated brands were carrying the ‘Kera’ tag in their brand names, clearly as an attempt to hoodwink customers as the ‘Kera’ coconut oil brand sold by Kerafed has a lot of takers in the state,” Antony said. Food Safety officers said while banning erring companies was an option, it was not a permanent solution as most of such companies were fly-by-night brands. “If we ban an adulterated brand, it will become available in the market under another name very soon.
There is no control or regulation over the supply and sale of coconut oil brands in the state,” the officers said. As for iodine content, experts said if iodine value was around 50 per cent in the adulterated oil, coconut oil content in it will only be about 25-30 per cent and the rest will be other oils. “Since palm kernel oil is available for `60-70 per kg, one can simply adulterate coconut oil without much investment and can reap huge benefits, as coconut oil price reached a 30-year-high of `260 per/kg a couple of months ago,” said experts in the field.
The officers said around 400 oil container lorries cross into Kerala from Tamil Nadu per day and a good extent of adulteration is taking place in Kerala with the help of cross-border oil mafia. When contacted, K Anil Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Food Safety, refused a comment saying the matter was sub-judice.