the goan I network
PANAJI
Taking cognizance of a report that appeared in The Goan Everyday, the FDA in a note has directed food business operators, including vendors, to pack food items using adhesive tape for paper bags or sealing machines for plastic bags.
In the note, Director FDA Salim Veljee said, “Recently, this directorate has come across several complaints from consumers on the practice adopted by food vendors of using staple pins to pack food articles in plastic or paper bags.”
He added that the probability of staple pins falling into food articles was high and being too small to notice could cause harm to the consumers’ health. “Whilst opening the food packets the pin can drop or fall in the packed food articles, and being too small to be readily noticed, chances of its immediate detection within the food article, inside the package would be difficult for the consumers,” said Veljee, adding that children were more prone to such accidents.
The director said all the “food business operators including supermarkets, malls, provision stores, retailers, fast food joints, hoteliers, kiosks as well as small and medium scale enterprises, self-help groups, home-based food packers, etc are hereby directed to immediately stop the use of staple pins, for packaging food articles, and should strictly employ better and safe methods so that consumers are not placed at any undue risk.” He also said consumers should be vigilant and insist that food vendors don’t use staple pins.
