LAHORE: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) released its annual figures on Sunday, highlighting that it has disposed of adulterated food valued at Rs311.577 million during the year, apart from inspecting 479,838 food businesses and shutting down 6,495 sites for failing to meet the quality standards as listed in the Punjab Pure Food Regulations 2018.
Moreover, the authority served 277,800 improvement notices on minor issues to multiple food points. This was revealed in the annual performance report of PFA Operations and its Vigilance Wing here on Sunday.
According to details, the enforcement teams of the PFA conducted 152,063 raids in Lahore Zone, 207,088 food points in Rawalpindi and 71,495 outlets in Multan. In South Punjab (Muzaffargarh Zone), the PFA visited 49,192 food sites during 2018.
PFA DG Muhammad Usman said that the authority stopped the production of 1,334 food businesses by serving Emergency Prohibition Orders (EPOs) across Punjab. In 2018, as many as 126,805 E-food licenses were issued to food business operators with the help of PFA. The purpose of the inspection was to ensure the provision of quality and standard food in Punjab, the DG mentioned.
Moreover, the PFA disposed of more than four million rotten eggs, over 60,000 of substandard meat, 176,000 litres of tainted milk and a huge quantity of unwholesome food. On the other hand, the provincial food body also held operations against toxic vegetables that are cultivated with industrial waste and sewerage water. The enforcement teams had discarded thousands of kilograms of unhealthy vegetable crops by ploughing on 10,000 kanals of land in Punjab.
Muhammad Usman said that PFA is doing work on new regulations for bringing food business operators on the right track and to meet the international food standards. The purpose of sealing and imposing of a fine was to reforms the food business operators, he said and added that the authority is utilising all available resource in order to improve the hygiene issues and situation in Punjab.