Nigerian consumers are at risk health hazards that could result from increasing circulation of fake sausages which are making real wave into the markets, further questioning the regulatory checks of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), BusinessDay findings show.
A visit to different retail shops across Lagos State, particularly around Ikeja, Oshodi, Gbagada, Abule Egba and Victoria Island revealed that these sausages bearing no expiration dates, manufacturing or batch numbers contrary to NAFDAC’s regulation are being sold to innocent consumers, most of whom do not check for dates on products before consumption.
“The shelf life of sausages is very short and it is exposed to microbial contamination. Without expiry dates, there is no other way one can ascertain if the product is still safe for consumption. Eating expired ones could lead to food poisoning and many people have died as a result of that,” said George Nwaha, a Lagos-based pharmacist.
Doyin Odubanjo, public health expert said consuming these expired products could be deadly.
“Once a product is expired, what the makers are saying is that they can no longer guarantee the state of that product because whatever preservative method they used is no longer effective. This is very dangerous and could become poisonous. When someone consumes such product, he or she could become very sick and die,” Odubanjo said.
Specifically, ‘Gala’ and ‘Beefie’, two products of UAC Food Limited and Chi Limited respectively are the targets of the perpetrators considering their increasing demand in the consumer market, a development experts say should have been a source of concern to the manufacturers especially in routine market checking on their products.
One of the retailers angrily responded to our visit, saying, “What kind of question is that? I bought this sausage (name withheld) directly from their makers and people have been buying. What is my business with date or no date? If you don’t like it, then leave it. I’m not begging for customers”.
“People have been buying them. You know I bought these products and I have to finish selling my goods as well. If they don’t finish buying them, will I pack them to my children to consume?” another retailer in Victoria Island told BusinessDay.
Other retailers that spoke with BusinessDay maintained that they bought the fake products directly from the company.
“Most times they don’t write dates because…Look inside this cartoon, that is how I saw them. You can see how new the wrapper is,” also said a retailer on Victoria Island.
At Ikeja, the situation is not different as some retailers try to convince sausage consumers who appeared confused that the products without expiry dates were good for consumption. “It is fresh. I just bought it today. Touch it and see how soft it is,” she said.
Moved by the health hazards posed by these sausages, BusinessDay visited one of the makers of the products Chi Limited, aimed at tracing the source of their product at various retail outlets in Lagos but efforts to get a response from the company or their media personnel was unsuccessful.
“Anybody can fake these products. The companies have been complaining”, Christiana Obiazikwor, chief public relations officer, NAFDAC said in defense of the agency. Meanwhile she noted that “Nigerians don’t check for the expiration dates. That is the problem we have. We don’t read labels. Even the scratcher on the products, both educated and non educated Nigerians don’t have the patience to scratch and check for product genuity.”
At UAC Food Limited, the company said it has a process in place that ensures every single Gala that leaves their factory is appropriately coded with production details.
“This definitely cannot come from us. It is really a big surprise to me,” said Joan Ihekwaba, General Marketing Manager of UAC food Limited after inspecting some samples of the product.
“Our products are always coded with batch no, expiry date and time of production. Even the shift of production is coded so, if there is any problem along the line we can trace it to the operator. It’s even good this information is getting to us because it means that something must be happening outside,” she said.
According to Kelechi Alaribe, Operations Manager, UAC Foods Limited, “The coding machine is designed in such a way that no gala goes out without it being fully coded. The time of wrapping and everything would be indicated as part of the consumer information. There is no way any omission can come up.”
Ihekwaba said in as much as they would like to ensure that they maintain the confidence that consumers have bestowed on them by rooting out the perpetrators, she could not do much because her hands are tied. “It’s so amazing how consumers take this product everyday as if their daily life depends on it and indeed with that in mind, we take care to make sure we don’t disappoint them. We know the economy is biting hard on everyone and a lot of people are doing stuff to ensure that they survive. If we catch the culprits, we’ll blacklist them.
“We don’t produce these gala wrappers here, they are supplied to us. So, it means between where it’s produced and the time it gets here anything can happen. So, it is not impossible for you to see the complete replica of our packaging. There is a limit to what we can control.”
Consumers who spoke with BusinessDay narrated their experiences.
Jeffrey Umoh, who resides in Ikeja area of Lagos, had already consumed one when he realized he should have checked it.
“I was famished on Tuesday so I bought a package of gala and a bottle of soft drink around Abule Egba. I usually check for dates but that day, I didn’t check probably because I was too hungry to check or because I’d come to trust the brand. Besides, the sausage was soft and fresh. I’d finished eating when someone came to buy gala and complained about the dates not been there. I quickly grabbed the wrapper which was now lying on the floor and to my shock; I discovered there was no date. Throughout that day, I was not myself,” Umoh said.
“When I went to buy sausage close to my house, the woman opened the showcase and was trying to give me the ones under instead of the ones on top. Immediately, I became suspicious. I thought they were expired and so I checked when she handed them to me. When I did not find the expiry date, I asked her and she told me that was how she bought them,” Juliet Okoro, a consumer who resides in Gbagada said.
Bayo Ojo, another consumer in Victoria Island said, “I’ve stumbled on expired one before but I was compelled to check because the packet was looking rough. If it wasn’t, maybe I would have fallen prey.”
