Lonavala’s Maganlal Chikki fails FDA test

MUMBAI: Maganlal Chikki, a Lonavala landmark, was pulled off shelves on Tuesday after the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) found it had no quality control measures in place to prove its products were fit for human consumption.

Maganlal Chikki is a chain of sweet manufacturers popular across the Maharashtrian hill station. On December 11, food officers from FDA’S Pune branch raided the manufacturing and packaging unit of Maganlal Food Products and it was violating several rules of the Food Standards and Safety Act, 2006. The unit had no quality-check system, its food safety standards lacked national accreditation, and there were hygiene lapses in the manufacturing process, the FDA’S inpection report, a copy of which is with HT, said.

There is no guarantee that the product manufactured by the company is fit for consumption, as they are not tested by any laboratory approved by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, or accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), the inspection report, by Food Safety Officer of the Pune region,rr Kakade, said.

Mangesh Agarwal, one of the owners of the company, said the issues raised by the FDA were “documentary in nature”. “The fact is, there is no food adulteration or spurious substance. There were small packaging and technical errors against which the FDA took action...,” he said.

His brother and co-owner, Ashok Agarwal, who was present when the unit was raided, said, “We have completed the process of sending products to an NABL accredited laboratory. We have also started hiring a technical person to supervise the products. ..in two days, our factory will start functioning again.”

Another lapse the FDA pointed out was how the superintendent of the manufacturing process was a Bachelor of Commerce, which does not qualify her to head the department. Officials said the company’s license was only valid for packaging. “We are not attacking a certain brand or person..,” said Suresh Deshmukh, joint commissioner, FDA, Pune.