Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) destroyed 60 kg of stale and unhygienic food items seized from eateries at Khandagiri Mela on Tuesday, during surprise checks by multiple enforcement squads.The civic body’s food safety wing said the squads randomly checked as many as 40 food stalls, took samples and dumped the sub-standard food.
“We also collected food samples as we suspect the use of artificial colour and chemicals in making food. Laboratory test will confirm if the food contains artificial colour. Despite generating awareness, shops are selling stale food and making them using artificial colour,” said designated food safety officer Satyajit Patel.The mobile food safety laboratory team, the Sanitation and Hygiene Inspection for Neat Environment (SHINE) team, and the food enforcement squad are conducting joint inspections. The SHINE team was formed in Aug 2023 to provide more teeth to sanitation.Food safety personnel said fast food items and some local and popular delicacies were binned after inspection, as they turned stale. BMC officials said the usual practice is keeping leftover food on a given day (until night) for mixing with freshly cooked food, which may cause health issues among customers. Some eateries also serve stale food.Food safety teams checked sweets, chaat, dahibara, ghugni and many fast food stalls so far. Raids will continue until the fair is over. “The aim of inspection is to ensure that people visiting the stalls don’t consume poor quality food and suffer. Mainly, we ensured that hotels and kiosks don’t keep stale food and maintain proper hygiene around the places where they stock it. We also found that many don’t have refrigerators and are keeping food for days,” Patel added.There are altogether 580 stalls put up by BMC for different kinds of items, out of which 100 are food stalls. The mobile food safety laboratory team, SHINE team and food enforcement squads were asked to check stalls every evening as well.
