Contaminated Choppies water recalled
Pauline Dikuelo | Thursday February 12, 2015 18:00
Assistant Public Relations Officer at the MoH, Mompoloki Lekoto told Mmegi Business yesterday that the ministry’s National Food Laboratory noticed the contamination after testing samples. The bottled water is packaged by a company called Bagpiper for exclusive distribution in Choppies outlets.
“Bagpiper is recalling two batches of Choppies branded water, batch SA 07 AND SB12 with immediate effect,” Lekoto said. He explained that the contamination was detected during the periodic tests that the National Food Laboratory usually conducts on consumer products.
According to the ministry, so far no cases of illness linked to consumption of the water have been reported. Production has since been suspended as Bagpiper seeks to rectify the breach that led to the contamination.
Choppies Managing Director, Ramachandran Ottapath urged customers who bought the 500ml bottled water with the mentioned batches to bring them back. “The batches contained about 12,000 Choppies branded 500ml bottled water. Only 4,500 bottles were left at the factory when this contamination was found, the rest has been distributed to retail outlets. For now, we do not know what the cause of contamination could be and we are waiting for investigations....,” said Ottapath.
The MoH said that confirmatory tests would be carried out to ensure the product meets the Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) provisions on safe drinking water, under the Food Control Act.
Consumers, who purchased the water in 500ml package sizes, are urged to return them to the place of purchase.