Shares of Jubilant FoodWorks and Westlife Development have dipped up to 12% on the bourses in intra-day trade after the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said that major multinational fast food outlets are selling pizzas and burgers made of breads laced with toxins such as potassium bromate and potassium iodate. CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY
Jubilant FoodWorks, which runs the Domino's chain of restaurants in India, dipped 12% to Rs 975, its lowest level since March 1, 2016 on the BSE, on back of heavy volumes.
The trading volumes on the counter jumped an over eight-fold with a combined 3.22 million equity shares representing 4% of total equity of Jubilant FoodWorks changed hands till 10:27 am. On an average sub one million shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on the BSE and NSE.
Westlife Development, the owner of the master franchise of McDonald’s restaurants in India, has fallen 10% to Rs 200 on the BSE in intra-day. The stock recovered from early morning losses and was quoting at Rs 212, down 4% at 11:06 am.
CSE said it approached the 12 companies whose samples were positive for bromate and/or iodate (according to the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory - PML tests) for their position on the use of these chemicals.
Britannia was the only sliced bread manufacturer to respond to CSE’s queries. “All our products are 100% in compliance with the existing food safety regulations,” wrote A Savitri, head for scientific and regulatory affairs at Britannia, in an email. “We do not use potassium bromate, potassium iodate in any of our bread variants.”
“The other five companies that categorically denied the use of these additives were Slice of Italy, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, KFC and Subway, all of which are fast food brands. Le Marche said it was not aware if potassium bromate was being used in the improver mix they sourced for bread-making. Harvest Gold Industries, LR Foods Pvt Ltd (makers of Perfect Bread), MrsBector’s Food Specialties Ltd (makers of English Oven Bread), Nirula’s Corner House Private Limited and Domino’s Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd have not responded to CSE’s requests for reactions yet,” according to release. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL RELEASE.
Commenting on this, company spokesperson, Jubilant FoodWorks, said “At Jubilant FoodWorks, we believe in, and adhere to, the highest quality standards and Indian food laws. We follow all processes to maintain the highest level of food safety across all our restaurants.
“We only use adhesives/ingredients duly approved under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India Act (FSSAI) in all our preparations (across all our restaurants). The flour used by us is not treated with Potassium Bromate/Potassium Iodate. We do undertake certificate of analysis/undertaking from all our flour suppliers on no usage of Potassium Bromate/Potassium Iodate in our flour supplies. We also carry out regular assessments of the flour to ensure compliance in this regard,” the company issued a statement pertaining to speculation regarding its food safety standards.
