Twenty eight live larvae and 32 weevils found in Nestle milk powder for infants

news

The last thing a parent would expect to find in formula milk while feeding their infants would be insects, and that too larvae. Just as Nestle and its ambassadors deal with negative publicity over allegations of excessive presence of lead in Maggi, a sample of the Nestle milk powder brand given to babies has been found not conforming to food standards. When Prem Ananth, a taxi driver hailing from Coimbatore, was feeding his 15-month-old child baby formula from a Nestle NAN PRO 3 carton in April 2015, he was shocked to find larvae swimming in the mixture. A sample was then submitted to the Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department, and following a query it was found that the baby formula contained live insects- “28 numbers of Live Larva and 22 numbers of Sitophilus Oryzae” were present in the 380 gm of Nestle Milk powder. (expiry date in 2016) This is a Sitophilus Oryzae or Rice Weevil “If it was food for us adults also we would have managed. But this was given to a child,” said Ananth, the father of two 18-month-olds. It was only after feeding one of the babies the same powder that Ananth says he noticed live larvae in the mix that he was about to feed his other child. The child was given medication after developing a skin allergy following consumption of the said food. Following a complaint Nestle representatives came to inspect the sample, but Ananth reportedly refused to give them the sample for testing in their labs and instead gave it to a government laboratory. He also refused replacement of the product. “They gave me a reason that I had kept it open for over 21 days. But I had bought it just the day before," he alleges. Deemed unsafe for consumption, R Thenmozhi, a food analyst who examined the sample, said in her report issued on May 18 that the provided sample did not conform by the standards under the Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) as it contained live insects, reported The New Indian Express. According to the report, a complaint has been filed with the Food Safety Cell in Coimbatore.

Show us some love! Support our journalism by becoming a TNM Member - Click here.