UP FDA finds detergent in Mother Dairy milk sample

The UP Food and Drug Administration today announced that it has found detergent in one of the samples of milk picked from Mother Dairy's collection centres, reported PTI.

"Results showed that the samples were sub-standard and one of the two contained detergent," UP FDA official in Agra, Ram Naresh Yadav.

The samples had been picked up from Mother Dairy's collection centres in Bah in November 2014.

"The samples were first sent to Lucknow and later to Kolkata on the demand of the company," Yadav said.

Mother Dairy, however, has categorically denied any adulteration of milk it supplies in pouches.

Sandeep Ghosh, the head of Milk, Fruits and Vegetables Section at Mother Dairy in Delhi, said, "Mother Dairy milk undergoes four levels of thorough testing at various levels -- input, processing, dispatches and even at market level."

Every tanker of milk reaching at plants passes a series of 23 stringent quality tests to check any deviation from defined parameters. These tests assist in detecting contamination of milk through water, urea, detergent, oil, etc, he said.

"For any such adulteration, the milk is immediately rejected from further action," he added.

The organisation follows 100 per cent testing protocol rather than resorting to random testing procedures, Ghosh said.

Mother Dairy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Dairy Development Board. Mother Dairy in a statement explained the process of collection of milk.

"It is very unfortunate that the samples collected at village level are being wrongly attributed to Mother Dairy. The milk sample allegedly being reported is before it even reaches the chilling centre and cannot be attributed to the brand Mother dairy at all as it has not been tested or accepted as good quality for further processing. Here we would like to reiterate that as a process the milk is first pooled at the collection centre post which the collected milk is taken to the chilling centre where milk undergoes the required tests to check that it is free from any kind of adulterant and for % FAT and % SNF. If the milk is found not meeting the requisite standards, the milk is rejected. Only acceptable quality milk is then transported to the Mother Dairy factories and then retested before receiving the milk inside the factory for further processing. After processing the milk is tested once again before dispatching to ensure that the milk reaching the consumer is safe.”