LAHORE: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has stopped the production of six meat shops and imposed hefty fines on 177 butchers during the province-wide meat inspection drive besides issuing warning notices for improvement to 1,050 meat outlets. On the directions of PFA Director General Muhammad Asim Javaid, meat safety teams (MSTs) examined 1,329 meat shops across the province while discarding 21,000kg of unhygienic meat. Moreover, the authority also got FIRs lodged against six meat shops in the respective police stations during different raids. In the city, the PFA DG led the operation to check the performance of field teams as well as to ensure the availability of healthy, fresh and safe meat to people.
He said the PFA barred the production of six meat shops by imposing emergency prohibition orders (EPOs) after recovering the unhygienic meat of sick animals during different raids. He said that the authority discarded the inferior-quality meat which was to be supplied to different cooking centres
and fast food points. Muhammad Asim said that the use of diseased or unhygienic meat in food could cause diseases for consumers. He requested citizens to support the PFA to eliminate the adulteration mafia while informing the authority on its helpline number 1223 in case of any complaint.