Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji

Panaji, Nov 7: The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) on Friday shut down a unit in Porvorim after uncovering a racket involving 700kg of unlabelled paneer brought into Goa and repackaged with false manufacturing dates.

The unit held a trading retail/wholesale FSSAI license but was found repacking products without proper hygiene norms or a repackaging license, misleading consumers. Richard Noronha, FDA-designated officer, North Goa, said, “We detained a vehicle coming from Islampur, Maharashtra, where the paneer was originally manufactured, and traced it to Modern Dairy’s Porvorim unit. Here, labels were being printed and stamped with different dates, including curd packets labelled Nov 9. The unit is licensed only for storage and wholesale, but repackaging was also being carried out in violation of the Food Safety and Standards Act.”

The FDA action followed a routine restaurant inspection that flagged a suspicious paneer supplier. The team intercepted the supplier’s vehicle at the Patradevi check post at 1:30am, discovering 700kg of unlabelled paneer and other milk products with falsified manufacturing dates intended for delivery to a wholesale outlet in Porvorim.

A raid at the Porvorim unit around 3am revealed paneer blocks being repacked into smaller portions using labels from Goregaon, Mumbai, with fake manufacturing dates. The paneer was being distributed to major food businesses across Goa. Samples have been sent for laboratory testing, and results are awaited.

The operation was conducted under FDA director Shweta Dessai, led by Richard Noronha and senior food safety officer Rajaram Patil, along with officers Amit Mandrekar, Pritam Parab, Lenin De Sa, Darlan Dukar, and staff Sandeep Shelke, Gaurish Gaonkar, Babaji Korkankar, and Sainath Chari.