Fast food giants across the state are on the radar of the Maharashtra Food And Drug Administration. They will be inspecting all the global fast food outlets to check if they use cheese alternatives in products wrongly promoted as containing real cheese. This comes after the FDA’s heavy crackdown on McDonald outlets in Ahmednagar district leading to suspension of licence which was later revoked after all compliance was done and the word cheese was removed from their menu. Abhimanyu Kale, Commissioner, FDA said that they have already begun with the inspection drive and all major outlets or brands will be inspected to check for similar violations of display and labelling rules.
“It is a continuing inspection drive across the state and if any violations are found we will take appropriate action on other wellknown and frequently visited global fast-food chain outlets," he said. According to sources food inspectors are likely to visit Indian franchisee outlets of brands such as Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King and KFC.
Story of MacDonald
MacDonald has since reassured many consumers online who voiced concerns about its cheese offerings, saying on social network X that it uses “globally approved gold-standard suppliers". “Our cheese is made from real milk only and we do not use any substitutes or cheese analogues," it said on Monday. Authorities have the power to suspend licences of restaurants found misleading consumers regarding food and safety standards. Despite the potential implications for these chains, Westlife Foodworld expressed confidence in its adherence to high standards and welcomed the inspections.
A senior official also emphasised that since last year inspections at all the food joints, restaurants are being done after a customer at Papa Pancho Restaurant in Bandra found a dead mouse in his food. “We have learnt that many food joints misled customers by compromising food safety. We have conducted raids on more than 250 restaurants, most of which exhibited various violations of food safety norms, of which 22 establishments with severe violations were given work closure notice, while 170 restaurants were served with improvement notices,” he said.
