An Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation laboratory test has found a mawa sample from Tulsi Mawa Centre in Asarwa to be substandard, prompting the civic body to seize 510kg of stock and seal the outlet as part of a wider festive-season food-safety crackdown.
The action followed AMC’s seizure of around 41,500kg of a suspected mawa substitute, described by the civic body as “analogue barfi”, from a cold storage facility in Gomtipur last Wednesday. The seized stock was linked to 15 large vendors, according to an AMC official.
Samples from stock belonging to some of the vendors were sent to the public health laboratory for testing. The sample linked to Tulsi Mawa Centre failed the test, after which AMC officials seized the material at the Asarwa outlet and sealed the unit.
The investigation also traced the suspicious mawa to a manufacturing unit in Vallabhnagar, Udaipur, Rajasthan. AMC said it alerted the food and drugs departments of Gujarat and Rajasthan to initiate further action against the parties involved in the supply chain.
The civic body also seized 41,400kg of sweets belonging to Radhika Food Products in Gandhinagar. According to an official AMC statement, 10kg sealed packets labelled Rajwadi Sweet (Bajrangi) and Indian Dessert (Nilkanth), stored at the Gomtipur facility, did not carry mandatory details including batch or lot numbers, manufacturing dates and expiry dates.
Samples from those packets have been sent for laboratory testing, and the report is awaited. AMC issued a notice to the firm under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. Health officials said further action would be decided after examining the firm’s response and receiving the official laboratory report.
In a separate inspection drive in Madhupura, AMC’s health and food department conducted 25 rapid tests across 11 ghee brands to check for vegetable fat adulteration. The brands included Dynamix, Mother Dairy, Prabhat, Shrimant, Ramji, Chandrakamal, Dodla, Nova, Paras, Gowardhan and Amul.
None of the 25 on-the-spot tests detected vegetable fat. However, officials collected 11 samples and sent them to the public health laboratory for detailed analysis. AMC said the rapid-test findings were preliminary, with the laboratory results expected to provide a more definitive assessment.
