THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Health Minister Veena George said that the food safety department has tightened the inspections in the Christmas-New Year market. Special squads of food safety officers are conducting inspections to ensure the quality of food items distributed during the Christmas-New Year season.

The minister stated that 2583 inspections have been completed under the leadership of various squads across the state. The operations of 52 establishments that did not comply with the norms were suspended. 151 institutions were fined. Rectification notices were also issued to 213 institutions. 317 statutory samples and 1114 surveillance samples were collected for testing. The minister said that the inspection will continue next week as well.

The Minister said that more attention is being paid to ensuring food safety quality in cake, wine, bakery goods manufacturing firms and other small enterprises. Cakes, various raw materials used for cake making, alcoholic beverages, ice cream, jaggery, coconut oil etc. were tested.

Marketing centres for fish and meat products were also inspected. Fish wholesale centres were also inspected under the leadership of food safety officers and samples were collected. The inspections were led by Food Safety Joint Commissioner Jacob Thomas, Deputy Commissioners S Aji, G Raghunatha Kurup and VK Pradeep Kumar.