THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Food safety department officials have conducted state-wide inspections at shops selling
cold drinks
and
bottled water
, including the ones at tourist spots.
Health minister
Veena George said inspections would continue in the coming days. Shopkeepers selling soft drinks must ensure that water and ice used to make the drinks are clean. Plastic bottles filled with drinking water and other soft drinks should not be stored exposed to sunlight or carried in open vehicles.
Soft drinks, bottled water, ice candy and ice cream sold at festivals and fairs must be sold in a safe and closed manner. Shopkeepers should ensure that cold drinks, bottled water and ice cream are sourced from licensed manufacturers.
In the 815 inspections conducted across the state over the past few days, operations of seven establishments found to be in serious violation of the law and their licence have been suspended.
Rectification notices were issued to 54 firms and compounding notices to 37 firms. As many as 328 surveillance samples and 26 statutory samples were collected for follow-up tests. These have been forwarded to the laboratories of the food safety department for expert testing. Further action will be taken based on the test results.
Joint commissioner food security Jacob Thomas, deputy commissioners S Aji, G Raghunatha Kurup and V K Pradeep Kumar led the inspections.
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