V&E Officials seize expired food products in Visakhapatnam markets

Illegal businesses by a few wrongdoers have been brought to light in a raid by Vigilance and Enforcement (V&E) officials on several Visakhapatnam based agencies. These agencies, reportedly, have been supplying expired food products in the city’s markets. Such expired food products in the market might put the citizens’ life at stake and create a lot of health issues.

Expired food products in Hostels and Temples

The food supplied by an agency, which tied up with several BC/SC welfare hostels run by the government, has been identified as supplying expired food. Prominent temples in the city too, receive some of the expired food from this agency.

Expired food repacked and sold

V&E Inspector of Visakhapatnam, Mallikarjun Rao said,“The private agency at Madhavadhara area sends its expired wheat flour products to another agency at Sivajipalem. The traders at Sivajipalem repackage the expired wheat flour packets by changing the brand name, date of packing and expiry date, and release the products again in the market.”

Vigilant department SI, Ramesh has mentioned that a bulk of the food products reach the hostels which makes it difficult for the hostel authorities to check all of them.

17,000 expired wheat flour packets, milk packets and cool drink bottles were seized by the V&E Department in the raid on Friday.

Care to be taken from the customer’s end

While purchasing any product from the market, please make sure to check its expiry date. In fact, some shopkeepers might fill the front rows with older stock to get rid of them quickly. It’s better to estimate how long that product might be in use for you and gauge if the remaining days of its expiry would be sufficient. If available, try to check the sell by date provided on the product.

Also, try to use the perishable products as soon as possible without stocking them for long.

The story was first published in The New Indian Express