Gujarat resident left shocked after finding fried frog inside packet of wafers, probe launched
Fried frog found inside a packet of wafers
In yet another alarming food incident, a resident of Jamnagar in India's Gujarat state found a fried frog inside a packet of wafers. Jasmin Patel, a resident of Pushkardham Society, said his nine-year-old niece bought the packet of Balaji Wafers from a nearby shop at 8 pm on Tuesday (Jun 18). After opening it and eating several pieces from the packet, they were left shocked upon finding a fried frog inside it.
They discarded the packet and went to the shop owner immediately to raise a complaint. After receiving an unsatisfactory response, he called up the customer care executive of Balaji Wafers. According to Patel, "A ladypicked up the phone and she told me that I am free to take any action I want."
Patel subsequently informed the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation Food Branch and reported the food incident. Thefood branch officials later visited Patel's house and collected a sample from the packet. After confirming the presence of a frog inside the packet, they opened a probe and took samples from other packets of the same batch. An investigation is underway to determine how the contamination occurred.
"We got a complaint on phone by a customer Jasmin Patel, who bought Balaji's simple crunchy salted wafer and found a dead frog. We have come to the shop from where he purchased this wafer packet and seeing the packet, it looks like it was a frog inside the packet. We are taking samples of wafers of the same batch number from the distribution agency for laboratory test," D B Parmar, a food safety officer of JMC, was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
Balaji Wafers, meanwhile, has reiterated its commitment towards food hygiene and said it will fully cooperate with the authorities as the investigation continues.
Jay Sachdev, the marketing manager of Balaji Wafers, said it was "not possible" for someone to find a frog inside the packet.
"We maintain complete hygiene while producing the snacks in our factory and it's not possible to find frogs inside our snack packet. We allow visitation of our plants to the students every week. If JMC starts an investigation we will fully cooperate," he said.
(With inputs from agencies)