BPOM Raids Shop-Houses Selling Formalin and Borax to Food Vendors
Jakarta. The Banten Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, or BPOM, raided three shop-houses in Karawaci in Tangerang on Tuesday for illegally selling formalin and borax to street food vendors at schools.
The raids were prompted by laboratory results that found formalin and borax in food from vendors in Bogor, as well as complaints from the public.
The agency has confiscated the substances as evidence and will conduct further inspections.
“We found a lot of formalin and borax stored in the shop-houses which were inappropriate for the storage of hazardous chemical substances,” Banten BPOM head Mohamad Kashuri told Antara on Tuesday.
“We are still checking for the shop-houses’ licenses and we still need to know if there are other chemical substances stored here.”
Formalin and borax are often illegally used as preservatives in foods such as chicken, fish, noodles, crackers, meatballs and tofu in Indonesia.
The owners of the shop-houses could face up to four years in jail or Rp 10 billion ($757,900) for supplying the chemicals to food vendors.
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