DIRECTOR-General of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, has cautioned Nigerians against consumption of unbranded foods in the market, saying they are dangerous for its consumers.
Professor Adeyeye said many unbranded foods are poorly destroyed, expired or stolen products that sneak into the market through scavengers at waste dump sites, thereby endangering the lives of innocent consumers, particularly, children.
Speaking at the agency’s Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Directorate Stakeholder’s Engagement with food sector operators in Lagos, she stated, “we found out that some of the cereals were picked up from dump sites in Agbara,Ogun State.
“Our climate is not very helpful when it comes to food preservation. If it is in the open air, it’s going to start getting degraded. That’s why we should avoid exposure of food to the elements.
“If a product doesn’t have NAFDAC number, we can’t guarantee the safety. We cannot speak to the safety of unbranded food in the open market. We do not know where they have come from. We don’t know anything about the expiry date of unbranded foods that we cannot trace.”
She added that NAFDAC uncovered two warehouses at Trade Fair Complex, Lagos, loaded with N3 billion worth of counterfeit drugs and children’s cereals picked from dump sites last year.
Professor Adeyeye said investigations by the agency in 2021 and 2022 also found that people prefer to buy the unbranded ones, some online, despite the inherent dangers associated with it.
According to her, “We considered the circumstances and the packaging and we couldn’t understand whether it was cheaper. We found out that even some smaller packages; the smallest packages of cereals were also removed from the packaging materials and sold in bulk. They add them together and sell them online.”
She declared that waste disposal methods by companies also account for why bad or expired products get to scavengers who will sell them back in the market.
Professor Adeyeye, however, urged manufacturers of food products be more concerned about their products in the market by establishing a post-market surveillance unit.
She said any company that does not have post-marketing surveillance or post-marketing pharmacovigilance (for drug manufacturing companies) department would not get their products renewed.
“We have asked companies to establish post-marketing surveillance department where they send people out to the market to see what is happening to their products. Once you get an inkling of somebody adulterating your product, you call us.
“We have the power to go and raid. Once you tell us, I assure you we will be there in hours in terms of mopping it up and getting the suspect arrested and prosecuted,” she said.
Professor Adeyeye, therefore, called for more food safety consciousness and compliance for continuous improvement in safety culture amongst industry players and consumers.
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