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After allegations surfaced about the presence of ethylene oxide in spice blends produced by Everest and MDH in April this year, the Food Standards Agency decided to issue alerts as a way of creating consumer awareness. Following this, when the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) confirmed the absence of harmful compounds in the brands, a multi-city sample collection drive by the regulatory body for safety checks and reporting led to the cancellation of manufacturing licenses issued to 111 spice producers across India, in the past month.
The order, which required the companies to halt production with immediate effect, has given the FSSAI some more time to test 4000 pan-Indian samples – which might lead to further revocation of licenses. The samples, which include products from popular brands like MDH, Everest, Catch and Badshah, were all sent for testing – from which 111 of the total 2200 failed to match basic standard quality parameters. Since the regulatory body works with a finite number of centres, the processing of the samples and declaration of results have been taking longer than usual.
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Official reports from the FSSAI highlight that majority of the violations have been flagged as a result of small scale spice producers – who have been operating units in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. When the safety authorities collected 34 samples of spices from MDH and Everest back in May this year, the presence of chemicals was found to be untrue. However, the current round of sample testing for spices have included parameters such as moisture content, insect and rodent contamination, heavy metals, aflatoxins and pesticide residues.
