New Delhi, Aug 28: Pepsi today said its products were "perfectly safe" and were produced as per global quality standards even as a government laboratory report found that some of its soft drink samples had much higher levels of pesticides than EU norms. "We reiterate that our products are perfectly safe and are produced in accordance with best international practices and conform to the best international quality standards," Pepsi said in a statement.
It referred to the statement of Health Minister Sushma Swaraj in Parliament on August 21, in which she had "comprehensively covered the safety and health issues of our products. We have nothing further to add".
But, Swaraj told reporters today that the Central Food Laboratory found that some of the soft drink samples of Pepsi and Coca-Cola contained much higher levels of pesticides like Lindane and DDT than permissible under the EU norms.
The findings showed that pesticide Lindane was present in all the soft drinks that were tested but was higher by 1.1 to 1.4 times the European norms in 33 per cent of the samples.
Also, many of the samples contained DDT and metabolites above the EEC norms while another pesticide, Chlorpyriphos was also present in all the samples, it showed. Bureau Report