A nationwide quality assessment has found several food products, including ghee, edible oil and dairy items, failing to meet prescribed standards, with serious concerns reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The findings were presented at a meeting of the National Price Monitoring Committee chaired by Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal. The Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) submitted a report based on the testing of 491 samples of ghee, edible oil and dairy products collected from across the country.
According to the report, all samples of packaged milk tested in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa failed to meet the required quality standards.
The assessment found that 26 packaged milk samples contained fat levels below the prescribed standards, while eight samples of milk powder had protein content lower than the required level.
The report also highlighted significant quality concerns in ghee samples. In Balochistan, 79.4 per cent of the samples were found to be substandard, followed by 63.3pc in Sindh and 58.3pc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The committee directed that the PCSIR report be forwarded to the Ministry of National Food Security and Research and ordered the establishment of a quarterly monitoring mechanism to regularly assess food quality.
Ahsan Iqbal called for immediate action against substandard food products and directed the establishment of a joint quality-control mechanism in coordination with the food authorities of all four provinces.
The minister said poor-quality food was among the factors contributing to the rising incidence of heart disease among young people and called for action against manufacturers producing substandard products.
The committee also directed authorities to include rural markets in the food-quality monitoring system to ensure that standards are maintained beyond major urban centres.
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