New Delhi, Aug 07: Under attack over allegations of its softdrinks containing high levels of pesticides, Pepsi yesterday questioned the credentials of the laboratory of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) which levelled the charge on Tuesday.
"The CSE lab that has reported these (tests for pesticides) results is not so accredited or certified," Pepsi said in a release here.

It said the government of India laid down processes of accreditation that were carried out by the National Accreditation for Testing and Calibration for Laboratories (NABL) to certify the capabilities of centres to carry out such tests.

"Specifically, with regard to any kind of pollutants, pesticides included, all Pepsi products meet and indeed better the most stringent testing standards," Pepsi said. It said the data put forth by CSE has been "benchmarked by them against EU norms (that are yet to be implemented even in Europe). These have been presented as some kind of poison index with highly exaggerated claims of the damage that can be caused by such trace presence".

Asserting that all its were tested against several stringent norms at independent world-class VIMTA labs that are duly NABL certified, Pepsi said these test results were regularly verified at Holland by TNO Nutrition and Food Research Labs. Bureau Report