BAD QUALITY GARLIC BEING DUMPED IN SA

“Why are so many more substances finding their way into crushed garlic?

THE next time you buy crushed garlic, you may want to think more carefully about whether you can trust what’s inside the container.

In South Africa today, a growing number of crushed garlic products include extra preservatives that not only result in a lack of flavour, but which also risk containing substances that could cause severe allergic reactions and even death. It’s not uncommon these days to see labels on most crushed garlic products detailing extra preservatives such as “potassium sorbate” and “sodium benzoate”.

What’s more alarming is that these same labels often indicate how they are not suitable for those with wheat, gluten, cow-milk, egg, soy or peanut allergies. This should immediately raise red flags for consumers, especially as crushed garlic historically has contained just one chief ingredient: garlic.

The question is: why are so many more substances finding their way into crushed garlic? The answer lies with a great global garlic price bubble that went bust last year. Exporters of dried garlic typically dehydrate the product before shipping it. This is done in order to decrease its weight and cut back on export costs. Once exported dried garlic arrives at its destination, it is then rehydrated again before being sold on to consumers. For years now, China has accounted for roughly 90% of the world’s dried garlic exports.

So when a severe drought impacted China’s garlic growing market in 2016 and 2017, prices across the globe started rapidly rising. With the rising prices came the market speculators who bought huge amounts.

When prices experienced a pullback last year, many of these same speculators had to offload their stock at much lower market prices. And because they were saddled with garlic that, in many cases, is over 24 months old, many speculators resorted to extra measures – such as adding preservatives – to combat increasing micro bacterial levels.

To further reduce costs, manufacturers started putting in additives like Xanthan gum derivatives – which suspends huge amounts of water – opening the door for extra substances, such as peanut traces, to find their way into crushed garlic products.

In recent years, the US and Australia have flagged batches of crushed garlic products for containing large traces of peanuts. In South Africa, the problem has largely gone unchecked owing to less rigorous testing standards.

With poor quality crushed garlic flooding our market, the importance of testing products has become crucial.

In our company, we have ensured that our garlic hasn’t been treated with added sulfur and have been pro-actively testing our supplies since the beginning of 2018 to prevent food fraud. We believe that there needs to be greater awareness around this issue and that more rigorous testing needs to be done.

Under the Consumer Protection Act, everybody in the supply chain is legally liable if a consumer falls severely ill or, worse, dies because of a lack of products being properly vetted.

It’s time that we as an industry tackle this issue head-on, and Mrs Garlic is open to showing the way when it comes to holding these products to the highest standard.