Several Fake Juice Factories Uncovered in Punjab, Crackdown Continues

Citizens have been advised to register complaints regarding quality food items on their official website, mobile application, and Toll free Number 0800-80500

PKONWEB Report – Punjab Food Authority (PFA) on Wednesday sealed five factories producing juices of different popular brands as part of
its continued crackdown on adulterators across the province.

The regulatory body recovered and confiscated more than thousand liters of hazardous juice, hundreds of liters of fake soft drinks and several thousand empty boxes in the raids- fake labels and raw materials were also confiscated.

Officials told media the regulatory authority has shut down a factory in the province on charges of refilling bottles in different brands of carbonated drinks and making spurious bottles with chemicals and contaminated water.

PFA closed down all such juice factories preparing juices with artificial flavors, loose colors and chemicals, officials said. Chemically contaminated juices were being sold to different shops in the market in the name of juices after giving them attractive packaging, said officials.

In one such raid last year, a factory on Lahore’s Ravi Road was sealed for producing substandard packaged juice and selling under the name of a popular brand.

In another raid on Bund Road, the PFA team sealed an ice production unit for using contaminated water for production of ice while another unit was sealed for producing sweet meat using fabric colours.

The food authority had also sealed a gutka producing factory in the Garhi Shaho area.

Earlier in June last year, the vigilance Cell of PFA seized a fake juice factory in Lahore. 

The officials recovered several thousand juice bottles from the factory. All goods, filling machines, packing machines and cylinders were seized.

The officers said the factory supplied mango juice across capital Lahore. The authority said the chemical used in the juice causes different diseases affecting stomach and intestine. 

Last month, the PFA sealed three juice factories producing fake and substandard juices while taking action in various parts of the city as part of a grand operation to eliminate the sale of impure food items before the arrival of Ramadan- the holy month started on May 7.

PFA teams also confiscated sixty thousand kilogram of pulp, eleven thousand liters of fake beverages, two thousand liters of chemicals and artificial flavors.

PFA has advised citizens to register complaints regarding quality food items on their official website, mobile application, and Toll free Number 0800-80500.