PFA Unearths Factory Producing Spurious Drinks

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Apr, 2024) The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has busted a group involved in producing spurious carbonated drinks of different popular brands to meet beverage consumption needs on upcoming Eid.

The authority discarded 5,000 litres of fake fizzy drinks, 55kg of hazardous chemicals, loose colours, substandard sugar and poor-quality of food flavours during a raid on a factory in the Sadar area. The team also seized 1,050 empty bottles, four kilograms of lids and labels, two gas cylinders, six chillers and a filing machine.

PFA DG Muhammad Asim Javaid said that the police had registered a case against two people over adulteration and forgery on the complaint of the PFA while handing the two accused over to the area police for the investigation to nab the group involved in this heinous crime.

He said that the authority took action against the factory owner over the failure of carbonated drinks samples during the lab tests. He said that fabricated fizzy drinks were being prepared with loose colours, hazardous chemicals, artificial sweeteners and unclean tap water.

Fake beverages with fake labelling were to be supplied to the different local shops in the subpar areas of Lahore; however, the raiding team ruined their unholy ambitions by taking timely action on the tip-off of the vigilance cell, he said.

The director general said that citizens were being misled by putting counterfeit labels on fake bottles. He further said that the use of chemically contaminated beverages poses a threat to users’ health, especially children because, expired ingredients in the preparation of drinks lead to kidney infection.

He said that the raiding team found the contamination of loose colours, substandard water and hazardous chemicals in juice and fizzy drinks. PFA’s enforcement teams had been carrying crackdown round-the-clock against counterfeiters under the zero-tolerance policy across Punjab, he added.