CUTTACK: Continuing the crackdown on food adulteration, the Commissionerate police and the food safety wing of Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) seized a huge quantity of spurious sauce from a shop at Malgodown and sealed it on Thursday. A trader Ranjit Pradhan and manufacturer Raj Kishore Mohapatra have been detained.
The accused trader Pradhan belongs to Jagatsinghpur and had been selling ‘Pihu’ brand of chilli and tomato sauce at his shop in Malgodown for the last year. “Pradhan was purchasing the adulterated chilli and tomato sauce at Rs 22 per bottle and selling the same at Rs 27 per bottle which was way cheaper than the usual price of sauces”, said IIC of Malgodown police station Trupti Ranjan Nayak.
Suspecting foul play over his little profit margin, police informed the CMC food safety wing following which, a joint raid was carried out at his shop. Around 120 bottles of adulterated chilli and tomato sauce were seized from the shop and Pradhan detained. During interrogation, he informed police about the unit where the adulterated sauces were being manufactured at Tailapada near Bentakar in 42 Mauza. Police along with civic body officials carried out a raid at the manufacturing unit running in the name of RK Enterprisers.
It was found that different kinds of spurious sauces including tomato, chilli and soya sauce were being prepared and marketed under the brand name of ‘Pihu’. Around 100 cartons of chilli and tomato sauce, 1,500 litre of raw sauce, three quintals of pumpkin and huge quantities of acetic acid and chemical colours were seized from the manufacturing unit.
CMC Food Safety Inspector Pratiksha Dash Mohapatra said that the ingredients written over the sauce bottles sold by the shop were a combination of potato starch and other materials. “However, basic ingredients like chilli and tomato were completely absent and there was an abnormal use of chemical colours and essence in the sauces”, she said.