The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s food department inspected a cold-storage facility in Gomtipur ahead of Diwali and found an estimated 1.02 lakh kilograms of mawa and related food stock stored at temperatures between minus 15 and minus 18 degrees Celsius, according to a report by Divya Bhaskar.
The facility, located in the Narsinhji Temple compound, stores mawa used by sweet shops during the festival season. The report said the stock belonged to about 60 different sellers, with roughly 80% of the total quantity linked to 15 major traders. The inspection comes around 15 days before Diwali, when demand for sweets and savouries rises sharply across Ahmedabad.
Mawa, or khoya, is made by removing part of the water content from milk. Sweet manufacturers use it to prepare products such as peda and other traditional sweets. The stock is brought from villages and cities across Gujarat and stored in cold-storage facilities before being withdrawn in smaller quantities for production.
A person associated with the cold-storage facility told the publication that traders generally keep the mawa for 10 to 15 days and collect about 500 to 1,000 kilograms at a time, depending on their production needs. The storage charge is reportedly Rs 2 per kilogram.
The Gomtipur area has two cold-storage facilities—Ambika and another facility identified as Padmavati—that hold food products for a large number of Ahmedabad traders, the report said. Another facility near Aslali, identified as Sachin Cold Storage, reportedly holds an additional 35,000 to 40,000 kilograms of stock.
The inspection also highlighted the distinction between mawa and ready-made sweets such as barfi. While mawa is a dairy product made from partially concentrated milk, barfi is a prepared sweet that may contain sugar and other ingredients. Using a ready-made sweet in place of mawa can change the product’s ingredients, sweetness and taste, and should not be represented to consumers as a mawa-based product, according to the food-safety guidance cited in the report.
Under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s classification, khoya-based sweets fall under food category 18.1.1.1. Food sellers are required to provide accurate information about the ingredients used in their products. Food that is substandard, contains extraneous matter or is presented under a false or misleading name can attract action under food laws, depending on the circumstances.
The report did not establish that any particular sweet shop had been found violating food-safety rules or that legal action had been taken against a named trader. It noted that action against a specific business would require examination of the relevant details and investigation rather than suspicion alone. Consumers have been advised to ask whether a sweet has been made with mawa or with a ready-made sweet base when buying products during the festival season.
