Last year it was Nestle’s Maggie, now it’s Ramdev’s Patanjali Atta Noodles, whose quality has been dubbed as of “sub-standard.” by Food Safety and Drugs Administration (FSDA).
According to a report by News18, the Meerut based agency found ash content in Ramdev’s noodles with the quantity being nearly three times the prescribed limits, even higher than Maggi samples.
The test was carried out on samples of Patanjali Noodles, Maggi and Yippee collected from Meerut on 5 February this year.
All the three samples were reported to considerably high level of ash content.
Chief Food Safety Officer JP Singh was quoted as saying that Patanjali Atta noodles had 2.69% of ash content, which is the highest in all three brands.
According to the report Patanjali Atta Noodles was found “sub-standard” for consumption.
VK Verma, District Officer, Department Of Food & Drugs, vowed to take action against the brands found to be of substandard quality.
He said, “Maggi, Patanjali and ITC products samples were collected in February for the test. They were found to be substandard. If companies aren’t satisfied with state lab reports,they can appeal fr retest,if they fail to appeal,we’ll take action accordingly. Notice will now be send to the companies and vendors.”
The permissible limit for ash content according to law is 1%, but all the three samples failed the test and were found “sub-standard” for consumption.
This comes after the bugs were spotted inside the sealed pack of Patanjali Atta Noodles in December last year.
A man who purchased it from a Swadeshi store in Narwana. The store owner allegedly admitted to selling the packet in question, but was unaware of the infestation.
“As soon as I learnt about worms being found inside a packet, I stopped selling noodles and informed the wholesaler about it. Being a retail shop owner, I can hardly do anything about worms being found inside a packet,” the shop owner shad reportedly said.
Atta Noodles had courted controversy soon after its launch after it emerged that Ramdev had decided to go ahead with the launch despite the food regulator not issuing any approval for this launch.
Though, in a clear violation, the packets of Atta Noodles displayed an FSSAI number, the agency said that it had not approved the Patanjali Atta Noodles.