Hyderabad turning into capital of adulterated food
Food adulteration pervasive in UNESCO’s ‘Creative City of Gastronomy’
Hyderabad: Let’s begin with some good news: In 2019, UNESCO designated Hyderabad as a "Creative City of Gastronomy" for its rich culinary heritage, blending Telugu, Mughlai, Persian, and Turkish influences. As a topping to that rare honour, Hyderabad was ranked 50th in the world in the 2024-25 edition of the “100 Best Food Cities” by TasteAtlas, an international guide to traditional food culture.
Alas! It is disgusting to believe that the city will slowly but surely assume the dishonour of being a city where one would get a plateful – yes, read that again – of very tasty food made with ingredients that are adulterated or contaminated in filthy surroundings, right under the nose of the authorities. Sadly, even the authorities seem to have cultivated only their tastebuds!
From the milk, tea consumed in the morning to the meals and tiffins or snacks enjoyed throughout the day and until late in the night, the denizens of Hyderabad are being served adulterated food, despite recently intensified raids by various government agencies. This alarming situation highlights how people are compromising their health, with dangerous ingredients finding their way to their plates, whether they are eating in swanky restaurants or at home after ordering outside food. Recent raids have led to seizure of hundreds to thousands of quintals of tainted food, mirroring the tentacles of those behind the criminal rackets involved in adulterating food.
The situation is so alarming today that recently Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy declared that a “HYDRAA-like” force would be formed to curb adulteration of food. The stock answer of food authorities is that they lack sufficient checking staff, given the huge numbers of eateries, takeaway stalls, and street vendors. Even if we accept that view, we cannot simply digest the scale of adulteration going on in the city.
Practically there are hardly any delicacies that can be certified as insulated from adulteration, be it the famous Hyderabadi Osmania biscuits, tea, paneer, and cream; or meat and chicken. Adulteration in food has become rampant across the city mainly due to the laxity of authorities and insufficient monitoring facilities. Usually only when neighbours raise a stink about adulteration going on in a building do the authorities step in. No one knows what happens to those caught in the act.
If the case is not brought to its logical end, the criminals behind the racket involved in adulteration will only change the location of their facility.
Asif Hussain, a city resident, pointed out that food adulteration has now evolved into a multi-crore business. From breakfast in the morning to dinner at night, every daily food essential - be it dairy products, packaged foods, or meat - is adulterated, posing a risk to people's health. Even supermarkets and wholesale markets places like Begum Bazar or Secunderabad are stocked with adulterated products, he adds.
Raids by the Hyderabad Police officials and food safety personnel revealed that many food items including - biscuits, bakery items, milk products including paneer, ice cream, ghee, cream, khowa, garlic-ginger paste, pickles, chocolates, tea powder, chicken, meat, spices are adulterated or prepared with expired products, chemicals and in unhygienic conditions that pose a direct threat to public health.
Ginger-garlic paste, an essential ingredient used in almost every dish, is at number one in adulterated products; it is prepared illegally with harmful chemicals like concentrated citric acid, Xanthan Gum and low-quality waste to bulk up products. The police have seized several tonnes of the adulterated paste during raids. In a single raid, police recently seized over 4,000 kg of ginger-garlic paste, along with 6,200 kg of low-quality raw materials worth Rs 22 lakh. On Tuesday, a video that went viral in AP, showed a man in Guntur stomping on a huge quantity of ginger in a big vessel to de-husk the vegetable.
Gaikwad Vaibhav Raghunath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Task Force) told The Hans India that the paste was stored in open plastic tubs, exposed to dust, flies, and other contaminants. The paste was supplied to various wholesale provisions stores and those operating food catering services. The DCP said that normally the adulteration in food is done either to gain benefits or due lack of proper hygienic conditions of processing and storing. This ultimately ends in cheating consumers and compromising their health. He further said: “It has been observed that these stored, packed, expired and frozen products are supplied to wholesale stores, restaurants, cafes, catering service operators for functions.”
Likewise, biscuits and other bakery items are prepared using adulterated ingredients and stored under unhygienic conditions. The DCP said biscuits were prepared using rotten eggs and including chemicals - sodium benzoate and sorbic acid, flagged as a potential carcinogenic ingredient.
Similarly, dairy products like ghee were found to have been manufactured by mixing it with palm oil, vanaspati, and other low-quality products in Ameerpet. At a dairy unit at Bholanagar in Banjara Hills, police seized 460 kg of ghee, 70 kg of mixed ghee, 2,090 kg of cow cream, and 1,170 kg of buffalo cream. In wholesale stores in Secunderabad, police seized 3,892 kg of paneer, khowa, cream and ghee all worth Rs 11 lakh. Nearly 2,600 kgs of adulterated paneer and various chemicals were recovered in the Secunderabad raid.
In Begum Bazar, police seized 8,300 kg of shrunken coconut powder worth Rs 21 lakh. They also seized 72 drums of various pickles including - lemon, red chilli, raw tamarind, amla, and sorrel, six drums of tomato and tamarind paste, a small drum of ginger-garlic paste and other material in Jiyaguda.
In Mangalhat, police seized a large quantity of offal including paya, head, brain, kidney, liver and other offal of goats and sheep, about 12 tons worth Rs 10 lakh and 300 kg in another raid. Besides, 600 kg of rotten/ frozen chicken was seized.
Ande Srinivasa Rao, Addl DCP, task force, said “The owners are storing meat for long periods in deep freezers and plastic tubs filled with stagnant water and supplying it at marriage functions, events and hotels.” In a heartening move, the city police have launched - Hyderabad Food Adulteration Surveillance Team (H-FAST) unit.
In the last month, the unit registered over 100 cases and seized nearly 65 tons of adulterated food items and arrested 98 individuals involved in these illegal activities.
