“So much so, we found the producers not even bothering to remove rat scats from the raw materials,” said Kamal Bahadur Thapa, market inspection officer of DoC. [break]
The gross negligence and anomaly of the two reputed sweets producers and sellers came to light when a joint inspection team of DoC, Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range and District Administration Office, Kathmandu conducted a sudden raid at their production units and retail outlets.
The market inspection team sealed the production units of both the firms located in Tahachal and shut down the retailing outlet of Corner Taja Gudpak Bhandar in New Road. Corner Taja Gudpak Bhandar is owned by Narendra Maskey.
“We will seal the outlet of Shree Krishna Gudpak Bhandar at New Road on Tuesday,” said Thapa.
PHOTO COURTESY: The Department of Commerce
Thapa further told Republica that the department has ordered proprietors of both the firms to instantly stop production and distribution of gudpak and to be present at the DoC with clarification within three days.
The team found around 1300 kg of gudpak prepared in unhygienic environment and around one truckload of substandard raw materials. The seized gudpak and raw materials were dumped at a temporary dumping site in Teku.
The team had last week raided about a half dozen reputed sweet shops, during which it had found reputed sweet producers like Anamol Sweets and Rameshwor´s using decomposed raw materials and animal fats and selling their products as pure vegetarian sweets. Their production environments too were found highly unhygienic.
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