Testing of Ethylene Oxide residue in all spice shipments to Singapore, Hong Kong mandatory

A government official said that rejection rates of spices are low and that export sample failures are one off in nature. “The rejection rate of spices is less than 1 per cent of the total quantity exported by us to major jurisdictions. India exported about 14.15 million tonne of spices in FY24 and 200 kg is a small quantity that has been recalled,” a commerce ministry official said.

Officials further added that the sample failure for Indian exports remains low at 0.1 per cent to 0.2 per cent while sample failure for imports from other countries is at 0.73 per cent. “One sample being impacted is not a big issue,” the official said, adding that India also rejects samples from many countries at times.

The official added that EtO is a fumigant type of product that is used during transportation and that some amount of pesticide is allowed in the process of food management. Different countries also have prescribed varying limits of chemicals that can be present in food, the official said.

Hong Kong on April 5 banned four products of Indian manufacturers MDH Pvt. and Everest Food Products Pvt. in the country citing presence of pesticide, ethylene oxide. The products included MDH’s Madras curry powder, sambhar masala mixed masala powder and curry powder mixed masala powder, and Everest’s fish curry masala.

Following Hong Kong’s move, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) on April 18 ordered the recall of Everest’s fish curry masala after the food regulator found presence of ethylene oxide at a level which is “not fit for human consumption”.

Spice manufacturer MDH has, however, said its products are safe for consumption, and the company has not received any communication from regulators and authorities in Hong Kong or Singapore about alleged contamination in its products, Reuters reported.

“We reassure our buyers and consumers that we do not use ethylene oxide at any stage of storing, processing, or packing our spices,” MDH said in a statement.