FSSAI suspends license of Westend Agro Products and Rehaan Healthcare

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has suspended the license of Westend Agro Products Pvt Ltd after observing serious food safe violations during inspection of its premises. Recently, the food safety regulator has also suspended license of Rehaan Healthcare after finding serious non-compliances during the inspection of its Health Supplements and Nutraceuticals Manufacturing Unit.

In a social media post, FSSAI said it received a complaint regarding alteration of manufacturing and packing dates, fraudulent re-abelling and sale of misbranded food products at the premises. Inspection revealed Westend Agro Products and Westend Corporation were operating from the same premises. “Several food products were found with altered manufacturing dates, expiry dates, batch numbers and misleading label declarations. Printing machinery, stamps, solvents and other materials allegedly used for altering mandatory food label information was also found during the inspection,” FSSAI noted.

Westend Agro Products owns brand Organic Shastra and the food safety regulator said that packaging materials, labels and printed wrappers bearing misleading declarations including “Organic” claims were recovered.

“Deliberate forgery and alteration of mandatory labelling information and sale of food with false or misleading labels, pose a direct threat to consumer and public health. The food products are, therefore, prima facie considered unsafe,” it added in its post. Therefore, the state FSSAI licence of Westend Agro Products Pvt. Ltd has been suspended from immediate effect.

On Friday, the food safety regulator announced that the FSSAI license of Rehaan Healthcare has been suspended and has been directed to cease all food business activities until all deficiencies are rectified and compliances is verified. The company’s health supplement and nutraceutical unit was manufacturing digestive syrup, multivitamin syrup and other syrup-based food products. “The manufacturing premises were found to be extremely unhygienic and unorganised. Sediments of filth and sludge accumulated under the manufacturing tank, disorganised storage of raw materials and poor housekeeping created a serious cross-contamination,” FSSAI said in a social media post.

“As the unit manufacturers Health Supplements and Nutraceuticals, a high-risk category of food consumed by children and other vulnerable groups, the unhygienic conditions and a failure of food safety poses a serious and imminent threat to public health, “it added.

Meanwhile, the FSSAI also said that an adjudication order has been passed against Sopan Restaurant following analysis of a Nova Flavoured Double Toned Milk sample collected from Pantry Car No. 15904 (Chandigarh - Dibrugarh Express). The State Public Health Laboratory, Assam, declared the sample as substandard in its report. “Strict regulatory action has been taken following the testing of a food sample collected from train services in Chandigarh - Dibrugarh Express,” it said in a social media post. A penalty has been also imposed following this incident.