With the increasingly high usage of adulterants in food products in the country, the Government of India should implement certain measures that will eradicate the problems related to low quality food products

Dr V.H. Potty, food technologist, deputy director (Rtd),

The Government of India’s (GOI) statistics claim that 15% of all samples taken up for testing are adulterated but the monitoring agencies at the state level do not have the wherewithal for testing more than a few hundred in a year in a country where 1.2 billion people reside. A major problem in India is that fraudsters or adulterators do not spare any food while considering their economic gains and are least bothered about the health risks posed by the food items they churn out. High-value products such as cheese, meat and alcoholic beverages, among others are favoured targets in Western countries, while simple food items such as puffed rice, cooking oil, sugar, coffee, tea, milk, ice cream, spices, dals, vegetables, ghee and butter are frequently adulterated in India.

Measures to be adopted

Monitoring food frauds is beset with insurmountable practical problems and ultimately the onus of avoiding such food products falls on the consumer. But how far the consumers in a semi-literate country like India can assume this responsibility remains to be seen. Added to this, disorganised retailing, where most commodities are sold loose (unpacked), leave consumers with limited or no means of finding out whether they are really genuine.

As the menace from this evil assumes alarming proportions, technological innovations in detecting such frauds are adding to the armoury of the testing agencies, which were not available earlier. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging, use of radio isotopes, genetic methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA finger printing are new tools that can detect adulteration in food products, although procuring, maintaining and operating such tools cost heavily.

Numerous cases of food frauds have been documented in fruit juices, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup and seafood products, among others. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies of impeccable reputation. Interestingly, the organised food processing industry itself is becoming increasingly critical about regulators blaming them for not doing enough to combat this social evil because fraudsters are eating into their business.

While organised players in the food processing industry can exercise some self-control with their brand value at stake, millions of informal players in the food processing sector do not come under the vigilance umbrella. In India there is a feeling that punishments for food crimes are extremely small. Moreover, the distinction between wilful and accidental adulteration while awarding punishment complicates the situation, thereby enabling most violators to get away with a ‘rap on the knuckle’, insufficient to be a deterrent.

Compulsory registration of all food manufacturing activities, stringent monitoring of processed food products, strengthening the infrastructure through several fold expansion and modernisation, ban on loose vending of any food items, stringent judicial system and product liability to automatically compensate consumers affected by fraudulent food products are some of the minimum measures that have to be undertaken to respect the rights of the citizens to quality and safe food products.

Dr V.H. Potty, food technologist, deputy director (Rtd), former chairman, Technology Application division, CFTRI and currently chairman, Diversified Food Technologies (India), Mysore, India