Nashik: The Food and Drugs Administration, Nashik, has started taking action against sweetmeat shop owners in the city if they have not started putting the ‘best before date’ on sweets which are sold in loose In the past four days, the FDA has slapped six sweet sellers, with a fine of Rs 17,000 for not putting the ‘best before date’.
As per the directives from the government and senior officials of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, the Nashik office of FDA has made it mandatory for sweets sellers to put the ‘best before date’ on all the sweets products that are sold in loose.
Chandrashekhar Salunke, the joint director of FDA, Nashik, said the compulsion of putting labels of ‘best before date’ was made mandatory from October 1.
Ahead of the implementation of this rule, the FDA had conducted meetings with sweets sellers in the city and informed them about its need as most of the sweets are milk-based and will hence perish fast.
Salunke said after spreading awareness about the same, food inspectors have started visiting shops of sweets to check if they are abiding by the new rule.
“Over the past four days, the food inspectors visited 36 sweet shops across the city and found 30 of them abiding by the new rule while six of them were not. The six sweets sellers were given notices after which they came to the FDA office and paid fine of Rs 17,000,” said Salunke.
Salunke said since the festive season has begun, the food inspectors will visit the sweet shops more frequently.