The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s food department has seized a 40,000-kg stock of suspect mava from a cold storage facility in Gomtipur ahead of Diwali and sent samples to a central laboratory for testing. The material, reportedly linked to Radhika Food Products, was intended for use in making sweets, but officials said it did not carry a batch number or expiry date.
The seizure was made during an inspection of a cold storage facility in the eastern Ahmedabad area as the civic body intensified checks before the festival season. The seized stock has been placed on hold pending the laboratory report. The available report does not establish that the mava was adulterated; its quality and compliance will be assessed through testing.
An AMC food department official said inspections were being conducted at different locations in the city in view of the increased demand for sweets during Diwali. According to the official, the mava was considered suspect because the stock did not display key traceability details, including a batch number and expiry date. A sample was collected and sent to the central laboratory for further examination.
The material was reportedly being used by Radhika Food Products to prepare products described as Indian desserts and Rajwadi sweets. The report said the company was associated with the stock found at the Gomtipur cold storage facility. No laboratory conclusion or final enforcement order was included in the supplied report.
Gomtipur has several cold storage facilities where small and large sweet manufacturers store raw mava. The report said around 15 to 20 traders are estimated to stock more than 100,000 kg of mava in the area ahead of the Diwali season. The scale of this storage makes the area a significant point for municipal food-safety inspections during the period when demand for sweets rises sharply.
The action follows earlier seizures in Ahmedabad involving stocks described in the report as fake paneer and counterfeit tomato sauce. Those cases, along with the latest mava seizure, have brought renewed attention to how food products used by sweet manufacturers are stored, labelled and examined before reaching consumers.
For consumers, the immediate issue is not a confirmed finding of adulteration but whether products entering the festive supply chain can be traced to their source and checked before use. Missing batch and expiry information can make it more difficult for regulators to identify a product’s origin, establish its shelf life and take targeted action if laboratory testing detects a violation.
The central laboratory report is expected to clarify the quality of the seized mava. The AMC food department is also expected to continue inspections at cold storage facilities and other locations handling festive-season food products in Ahmedabad.
