fssai-declares-bengaluru-s-empire-chicken-kebab-unsafe

Bengaluru's popular chain of restaurants, Empire, has found itself in soup following a lab report by State Food Laboratory, Public Health Institute, which stated that chicken kebabs at its Gandhinagar outlet are not fit for human consumption.

 

The food safety alert was issued after an inspection by Food Safety Officer Ambarish Gowda, who picked up 2 kilograms of chicken kebab samples (four packets of 500 grams each) from Empire's outlet at Anand Rao Circle on June 27.

 

The samples were subsequently tested. The results of the test, which were dated July 11, showed that the chicken kebabs lacked the standard safety levels set in the Food Product Standards & Food Additives Regulations, 2011. The food was subsequently labelled as unsafe according to the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

 

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As a consequence, BBMP's Food Safety and Drug Administration (North Zone) has served a proper notice to the restaurant, asking them to reply within 30 days. The restaurant was informed that they can opt for retesting the second half of the food sample at CFTRI, Mysuru, but on their own cost.

 

"We have got a notice sent by FSSAI. We will not be speaking on the specifics of the issue, but I can verify that we have stopped serving food colouring in our kebabs now," said Shakir, CEO of Empire restaurant chain.