The Food Safety and Standards Authority India (FSSAI) has launched a nationwide investigation into a widespread local honey adulteration scandal and is mulling ‘better’ test methods – but researchers are calling for the agency to take more ‘stronger, public action’ before the situation worsens.
The honey adulteration scandal was recently triggered when Indian research organisation Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) published a report revealing how 77% of local honey samples tested were found to be adulterated with sugar syrup – with many of these samples coming from big, established honey brands such as Dabur and Patanjali.
“A total of 13 honey brands were tested, [eight being] big brands and five niche brands. Overall, 17 out of 22 samples (77%) [of local honey] were found to be adulterated,” CSE said in the original report.
Researchers have consolidated the glycaemic index (GI) of 940 common Asian and Middle Eastern food items such as nasi lemak, chapati, dim sum, dates and habba hamra in a review article published in the Nutrition and Diabetes journal.
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China food safety alerts: Warnings and directives for fermented foods, counterfeit foods and beverages issued by government By Pearly Neo The Chinese government has issued a series of warnings and directives on the consumption of fermented foods, counterfeit foods and beverages on the back of a deadly mass food poisoning event and the rapid rise of food fraud cases in the past year.
All the warnings and directives were issued by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), with particular emphasis on the safety of fermented foods due to a lethal mass food poisoning case in Heilongjiang province last year where nine members of a single family died after eating homemade suantangzi (fermented corn noodles).
The South Korean government has designed a specific food labelling bot tool to help manufacturers comply with local regulations and requirements.
The South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has put a great deal of effort into promoting tools and guidelines meant to help local food firms navigate labelling requirements over the past few years, including a 10-step guidance document released early last year on nutrition labelling.
Now the ministry’s latest endeavour has gone high tech with the development of a specialised bot programme to guide food labelling.
Dubbed the ‘Food Labelling Bot’, this digital programme was launched earlier this month and can be found on the Food Safety Korea website here
Tech collaboration: Thai Union reveals ambition to widen healthier RTE portfolio with low-GI products Seafood giant Thai Union has revealed how it is looking to broaden its healthier products portfolio including ready-to-eat (RTE) meals, on the back of significant investment in Singapore low-GI firm Alchemy Foodtech.
Alchemy raised a seven figure investment from its recent bridge round with multiple investors from all over the world. The investment round was overall led by Thai Union and also included big names like Shanghai VC Bits x Bites and South Korean VC Sunbo Partners.
The firm’s GI-lowering technology and products allowing for better control of blood sugar levels have garnered them widespread interest, particularly with the launch of its powder blend Alchemy Fibre last year, which lowers the GI of any rice it is added to without changing taste or texture.