PFA to take action against infant formula companies over violations

LAHORE: Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has announced restarting its action against infant formula companies as the business adjustment period will end on September 20.

In this raged, the authority has prepared its action plan, which will take off without any discrimination against the violators, said PFA DG Usman while chairing a meeting here on Sunday. He said he has given a go-ahead for taking strict action besides reviewing the progress of PFA’s Technical Wing.

The PFA DG said PFA would not spare anyone found guilty of violating PFA rules after ending the deadline. He said manufacture companies of infant formula could not mention the word ‘milk’ or infant formula is a satisfactory substitute for human breast milk on the packing of their products, as per the orders of Supreme Court.

He added infant formula companies could not give free samples of their products to doctors in hospital for the marketing purpose, added that, medical centres will provide infant formula products to customers only on prescription/ recommendation of doctors.

He said PFA will remove stock of all companies from the market which will not bring a reform and failed to meet the PFA food regulations after September 20, 2018. Besides, PFA would take action against violators as per the law. He also directed Monitoring and Vigilance Wing to more vigilantly monitor the activities of infant formula companies’ employees in hospitals and markets.

Meanwhile, Punjab Food Authority (PFA) continued its special drive on substandard manufacturing kulfi units on Sunday, marking the second day by sealing 24 food businesses and penalising 51 food business operators for violating the provincial food law. On the directions of Punjab Food Authority director general Usman, food safety teams under the supervision of Food Safety Officers (FSOs) visited kulfi production units from Lahore to Raheem Yar Khan and Rajanpur to Rawalpindi. Muhammad Usman said as many as 188 production houses were inspected on the second day of the drive in Punjab. He said PFA inspected 57 kulfi production units in Lahore region. Ten units were sealed, 15 penalised and 25 served with warning notices. In Rawalpindi Region, PFA sealed four kulfa production units, 16 FBOs were penalized and served notices for improvement on 26 units. As well as, food safety teams charged 20 food business operators with heavy fine tickets in south region, and served notices on 32 outlets and sealed 10 production units.