Recently the Federation of Sweets and Namkeen manufacturers met the CEO, FSSAI and raised the issue of adulterated Khoa which was being supplied to them.
As a result of this, a pilot survey was conducted by Department of Food Safety, Delhi under the guidance of FSSAI, where they placed Food Safety on Wheels (FSWs) at Mori Gate Khoa Mandi in Delhi between 31st August to 4th September 2020.
Due to its versatility, Khoa or Mawa is used for making an array of traditional Indian sweets like barfi, peda, milk cake, kalakand, halwa etc.
In the survey, Khoa samples were tested by the FSW staff for 3 parameters viz. Titratable acidity, maximum added starch and added sugar in Khoa. A part of the Khoa samples was also sent to the State Food Testing Laboratory for testing of other five parameters viz. Urea, Detergent, Neutralizer, Baudouin and B.R. reading.
Considering that there was some failure in the samples collected at Delhi during the pilot survey, it has been decided by the FSSAI to conduct a Pan–India Khoa Quality survey.
The Commissioner Food Safety of all States/UTs have been requested to select Khoa mandis in their respective States/UTs especially in big cities; where they then placed the FSWs for 5 days in selected khoa mandis between 12th to 16th October 2020 and encouraged Khoa buyers to get their Khoa samples tested.
So far, the food authority has received ~700 samples for testing across 15 States/ UTs. Others will submit the data soon.
The test results are expected in a month’s time. The final survey results will help in identification of the key hot spots for adulteration of Khoa in different parts of the country and strengthen efforts at the States/UT level in devising targeted enforcement drives in the coming months.
The whole exercise is aimed at ensuring the availability of pure and safe Khoa for safe Indian sweets in the country.
