The officials of the Food Safety Department have conducted raids in 73 hotels in the city during the past one week. As many as 38 hotels were served notice, while three hotels were shut down.
According to officials, three hotels were closed down after unhygienic conditions were reported from there. The department also have collected Rs 1,80,000 as fine from various hotels.
“Three of the hotels were located in Kaloor, Thripunithara and Hill Palace, respectively. During the raid we found that food was prepared in very unhygienic conditions. Plates were not washed, waste was dumped without care, and workers were wearing dirty clothes. The checking would continue as per the food safety act,” an official said.
Officials said that people should be wary of eating food from hotels as most hotels add synthetic colour to the food. “Even though there are natural colours available in the market, hotels use synthetic colours. About 70 per cent of the non-vegetarian food and 40 per cent of the vegetarian food are prepared using colours. This is very harmful, since chances of cancer and infertility occurring are very high. These colours were so sticky that we had to wash our hands several times after collecting samples from the hotels,” officials said.
Food safety officials also found that several bakeries and hotels were using milk which was two to three days old, which actually gets expired in a day.