New Delhi: After Maggi, the nation’s food regulator on Monday ordered quality testing for noodles, pasta and macaroni brands of seven companies, including Nestle, ITC and GlaxoSmithkline, across India to check for health hazards.
Listing a total of 32 brands, including Maggi, Top Ramen, Wai Wai, Yummy and Foodles, FSSAI also ordered the immediate recall of all instant food products that did not have any product approval and were being sold in an “unauthorised and illegal” manner, reports said.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, in its quality testing directive to all states and Union territories, said “various test results on Maggi and similar products have raised serious health concerns” and therefore all such products must be tested.
“It would be advisable to draw regulatory samples for similar products,” it said, adding that the samples should be sent to authorised labs.
“The safety of other such products in these categories has not been assessed as per product approval procedures. As such, (these) are unauthorised and illegal and cannot be intended for human consumption,” the regulator said.
“You are advised to ensure such products are recalled, removed from the market and destroyed,” FSSAI CEO Y.S. Malik said in the circular to the commissioners of food safety in all states and UTs. The circular also listed the detailed parameters on which such tests would need to be conducted for noodles, pastas and macaroni with tastemaker of all makes and brands sold in the market.
Tastemaker should be tested separately, while all states/UTs have been asked to submit their reports by June 19. The circular follows FSSAI’s order on Friday for recall of all variants of Maggi.
