1,000kg spurious ghee recovered

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s food safety department on Friday seized over 1,060kg of counterfeited ghee during a raid at Shradhanand market near Lahori gate. Officers confiscated 60 cartons containing 18 one-kg plastic jars of ghee being sold under the ‘Gowardhan’ brand.

“Some of the packs had been opened. We confiscated all that was there in the shop. Samples were also sent to the food safety lab,” said Ranjit Singh, designated officer, Delhi’s food safety department.

The raid was conducted on the complaint of the company whose products were being counterfeited.

“We realised there was a problem when we found out that our ghee was being sold at ₹100 less than our market price. We also received complaints from some customers that the quality of the ghee was bad,” said Dinesh Bhatnagar, head, corporate affairs at Parag Milk Foods, the company that manufactures ghee.

“When we got some of the samples, we realised that it was counterfeit; the logo they were using was slightly different, the colour of the packaging was also off, and our products say ‘Parag Milk Foods Ltd’, but the counterfeit did not have an ‘s’ in the food,” Bhatnagar said.

Although legal proceedings will be filed after an analysis of the samples in Delhi’s food safety lab, even upon a physical inspection, the counterfeit ghee was not found to be up to the mark.

“The first thing we do while collecting samples is to check the physical appearance. I have been in the field for years and on just a visual inspection, I could tell something was off with the ghee,” Singh said.