National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has intensified efforts to combat the presence of unbranded cereals and other food items of industrial sizes in open markets.
Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, Director General of NAFDAC, disclosed this after a dialogue and feedback session with food manufacturing companies.
Expressing concerns over the health hazards associated with the dispensing of unbranded milk and cereals in unsanitary conditions, Prof. Adeyeye, represented by Mrs. Eva Edwards, the Director of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, emphasized the need to address the issue promptly. She condemned the ubiquity of bulk food items in markets, suggesting that these items may originate from manufacturing plants or their suppliers.
The Director General highlighted that companies had initially applied to use these bulk items in the manufacturing of NAFDAC-registered products. However, she expressed disappointment at finding these items being sold in open markets through measures like scoops, deeming it unacceptable.
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“We are concerned that we find these items being sold in measures, scoops in the open markets. So we are looking at that process of issuing permits for bulk food raw materials very critically,” she stated.
To address the challenge, NAFDAC has implemented additional measures to assess and verify the utilization records of companies applying for import permits for bulk food raw materials.
Mrs. Edwards emphasized that the Agency is now scrutinizing the process of issuing permits more critically, demanding detailed information on imports and usage from the previous year.
“We don’t want to just see your stock cards, we want to know what you imported in the previous year. We want to know what you used because there are some calculations that we need to make,” she disclosed.