TIRUPATI: A report of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) released on July 23, 2024, has raised alarm over the poor quality of ghee used in Tirupati laddus, suggesting potential adulteration with foreign fat. The Water and Food Analysis Laboratory of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) sent the sample to the NDDB for analysis on July 12, 2024.
According to the NDDB report, the S-value analysis of the sample fell outside the standard limits, suggesting the presence of foreign fats such as soya bean, sunflower, palm kernel fat or even lard and beef tallow. The acceptable S-value range for pure milk fat is between 98.05 and 104.32, but the tested sample showed values ranging from 19.72 to 117.42, reflecting significant deviations.
Despite these findings, the NDDB noted that certain factors such as feeding cows with fodder containing high amount of vegetable oil or employing specific extraction methods, could lead to false positives. They indicated that technological treatments like cholesterol removal or fractionation as well as ghee extracted using methods like Gerber or Schmid-Bondzynski-Ratalaff, might contribute to inaccuracies.
The NDDB report stated that the method specified in ISO 17678 may be used for determining milk fat purity in non-cow bovine milk until further validation studies are completed.
It may be noted here that the TTD lab tests revealed that 20,000 kg of ghee supplied was of substandard quality.
However, it remains unclear if the substandard ghee was linked to the recent concerns about ghee laced with animal fat.
The supplier was awarded a contract to supply 8.5 lakh kg of ghee and out of which 68,000 kg was delivered. Informing that the errant ghee supplier was blacklisted, TTD Executive Officer J Syamala Rao said criminal charges would be filed against him.