Fault in pilchards production
The Department of Education has suspended with immediate effect, the serving of pilchards in schools as part of the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), which provides meals to over nine million learners across the country.
The suspension comes after the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) recalled all wholesalers, retailers and informal traders to remove the 400-gram cans of pilchards in tomato sauce and 400-gram pilchards in chilli sauce, with immediate effect.
The department has advised the following:
• Suspend serving pilchards with immediate effect.
• Check all pilchards stock against the official list of products and product codes ZST29 and ZSC29.
• Replace pilchards with other sources of protein from their approved menus in the mean time.
The director for NSNP, Neo Sediti, said the department was working in collaboration with provinces to ensure that food items used in the administration of the NSNP were firstly of a good quality, and secondly of high nutritional standard.
“To date the department has not yet received any negative reports from provinces, we are at this stage trying to proactively stay ahead of the any potential challenges and protect the profile, credibility and integrity of the NSNP.”
ALSO READ: Students of the University of Mpumalanga protest in demand of allowances
The brands affected are Deep Catch, Mammas, Okay Household, Prime Ocean, SPAR, Sunny, Shoprite Ritebrand, Cape Point, Checkers Household, U Brand, Saldhana and West Point.
Last week 400-gram cans of pilchards in tomato sauce sold at Shoprite under the Rite brand, and Checkers under the Household and Cape Point brands, were recalled and declared unfit for human consumption.
West Point Processors had problems during processing, causing the cans of pilchards in tomato sauce to bloat, which could lead to sickness if consumed.
Shoprite urged consumers to return the product to stores in order to be refunded.
ALSO READ: SPCA rescue animals from pet shop
There are two specific batches of the cans affected: ZST2 and ZSC2.
The NRCS said in a statement on Monday that there are more pilchard products that were affected by the canning deficiency, including chilli sauce flavoured pilchards.
It urged retailers to take all the affected canned goods off their shelves immediately.
