‘PFA to upgrade labs, testing kits’

LAHORE:Punjab Food Authority (PFA) is set to upgrade food laboratories to counter a deceptive maneuver of food business operators in the food industry.

This decision was taken in the meeting chaired by PFA Director General Mudassar Riaz. He reviewed the process of conducting the food testing through food testing kits including lactoscan, lactometer, refractometer and PFA milk testing kits at his office.

He said that the purpose of upgrade of equipment is to detect the adulterated ingredients in the food on the spot in less time. He said that the food authority had examined 34,002 food samples in the Food Laboratory from Jan 2021 to September 2022.

Sharing the details, he said among 15,358 samples found up to the required standards, however, 18,644 samples failed to meet the food safety and quality standards. PFA DG added adulteration mafia is adopting different tactics to get clearance of adulterated milk and other food items, adding latest and modern equipment would play a vital role in blocking the path of adulteration mafia. The utmost priority is to equip food safety teams with modern gears as per the intentional standards, he added.