The crackdown on Nestle over the Maggi controversy has probably spilled over, as other packaged food items are now finding themselves under the scanner.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, US food-safety inspectors have labelled hundreds of made-in-India snacks unfit for sale in America.
The FDA website says Indian products have been found to contain high levels of pesticides, mold and bacteria. Most Indian snacks rejected by the FDA this year were from the Nagpur-based food company Haldiram’s.
The FDA reportedly found pesticides in Hadiram’s products. The body also rejected some products from Britannia were also rejected.
According to the US FDA website, pesticides were first discovered in Haldiram’s products in September 2014, and since then, the products of the company have been refused for imports 86 times.
Report showed that fried and baked snacks were unfit for consumption. The report labelled Haldiram’s cookies, biscuits and wafers as ‘filthy, putrid or decomposed- otherwise unfit’, and that they were adulterated, containing a poisonous substance.
The company, however dismissed the charges, asserting that its food was completely safe and complied with the “law of the land”.
A senior Haldiram official told the WSJ, “Our food is 100% safe and complies with the law of the land. A pesticide that is permitted in India may not be allowed there. And even if it is, they may not allow it in the same concentration as it is here.”