Hyderabad Police have successfully seized 36 tonnes of adulterated ghee along with various raw materials and chemical additives in a significant operation targeting illegal ghee manufacturing and trading organisations. This action was confirmed by officials on Tuesday as they detailed the extensive measures taken during the investigation.

Following intelligence inputs and public reports, the Hyderabad Food Adulteration Surveillance Team (H-FAST) collaborated with the Food Safety Department. They conducted simultaneous inspections at 130 locations on the morning of the operation, comprising 39 ghee manufacturing units and 91 retail outlets.

Hyderabad Police Commissioner V C Sajjanar indicated that the inspections revealed a large-scale operation where poor-quality ingredients and unauthorised chemicals were improperly combined to create synthetic ghee, which poses serious health risks to consumers.

Details of the Adulterated Products

The enforcement teams seized various items during the operation, including 36 tonnes of adulterated ghee, milk cream, palm oil, vanaspati, artificial ghee flavours, starch, and different chemical additives. Food safety officials collected mandatory samples for further laboratory analysis to determine the extent of adulteration.

Sajjanar described how the adulterated product was misleadingly packaged, marketed, and sold to consumers as ‘Pure Desi Ghee’. The police revealed that manufacturers used non-dairy ingredients, such as palm oil, vanaspati, skimmed milk powder, and starch, to mimic the properties of genuine ghee. Some products reportedly contained no dairy components at all.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Task Force), Gaikwad Vaibhav Raghunath, explained that the products were packaged in transparent covers and labelled with terms suggesting purity, such as “100 per cent pure ghee”, “premium ghee”, “farm fresh ghee”, and “natural ghee”. However, these packages did not provide requisite information including batch numbers, FSSAI licence details, Certificates of Analysis, manufacturing and packing dates, or expiry information.

Impact and Distribution of the Fraudulent Products

Investigations revealed that the level of adulteration in the seized products ranged from approximately 10 per cent to 40 per cent. These products were then distributed to various end-users, including puja ghee suppliers, restaurants, tiffin centres, sweet-making units, and Ayurvedic shops.

The milk cream utilized in this fraudulent ghee manufacturing process was sourced from suppliers located in several states, including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Police indicated that the adulterated ghee was produced at a low cost using cheaper ingredients, which were sold in the market as authentic ghee at much higher prices, generating considerable illegal profits.

This operation’s implications extend beyond Hyderabad, as the adulterated products were reported to be distributed throughout Telangana and neighbouring states, further intensifying public health risks. Authorities are currently in the process of registering cases against those implicated in these illegal activities.

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