Through its letter dated 19 August 2020 the FSSAI has advised all the Commissioners of Food Safety of All States/UTs as well as all Central Licensing Authorities to strictly monitor the production process of all the vegetable oil refineries and blending units under their jurisdiction through surveillance and through indicators like
- presence of Glycerine in the oil mills
- presence of Oryzanol in the Mustard oil products
They have been advised to carry out surveillance of oil mills and FBOs to ensure and prevent the use of any DAG/Synthetic Oil for adulteration with any edible vegetable oil including mustard oil. The testing for Oryzanol presence in mustard oil should be carried out on regular basis with strict enforcement.
Further, the FSSAI has also advised the Commissioners of Food Safety, to sensitive the Food Safety Officers towards the provisions of Section 38 (9) of FSS Act, 2006 regarding “Powers of Food Safety Officer” which states “When any adulterant is seized under sub-section (6), the burden of proving that such adulterant is not meant for purposes of adulteration shall be on the person from whose possession such adulterant was seized” and accordingly in exercise of the said powers, if any DAG/Synthetic Oil is found in any oil mill appropriate proceedings should be initiated against the FBO as per the provisions of FSS Act, 2006 and rules & regulations made there under.
The FSSAI has also brought attention to the previous advisory letters dated 17 July 2019 and 4 March 2020. In the advisory dated 4 March 2020 the FSSAI had brought to notice the fact that there have been instances of adulteration of various vegetables oils. Specially mentioned was the adulteration of mustard oil with rice bran oil, as after a surveillance of mustard oil in Delhi/NCR 33% samples were found to have presence of oryzanol.
Source: FSSAI
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