The notice said Nestle bosses had argued at a meeting with the regulator that the tests at the Kolkata lab had “showed a very high level of lead because the samples remained open for a long period of time before being tested.” It did not elaborate on how that could have caused the sample to be tainted.
That argument was rejected by the FSSAI. The head of the Central Food Laboratory in Kolkata, A.K. Adhikari, said: “We stick by the result and nothing can change it.”
Adhikari declined to comment when asked whether the Kolkata lab had found similar results in further tests on Maggi noodles. The test on the Barabanki batch showed a lead content of 17.2 parts per million (ppm), compared with a legal limit of 2.5 ppm, a copy of the lab report seen by Reuters showed.
In the first public appearance by management since the scare began, group CEO Paul Bulcke told reporters in New Delhi on Friday that Nestle’s own and third-party tests had found that the product was “safe for consumption”.
Nestle now has less than two weeks to convince the regulator why product approval for its noodles should not be withdrawn.
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