Chi: Watch that Yoghurt!

The Nigerian reading public can still recall some cases of contaminated consumer products that had received much publicity and little punishment or action against default manufacturers, from the killer infants Pfizer Drugs in Kano to poisonous My Pikin teething mixture that claimed the lives of not less 84 children in Lagos. This time around, one of Hollandia’s fruit drinks under the brand name of Hollandia Pineapple and Coconut Yoghurt, from the stable of Chi Nigeria Ltd, is in the news. Packs of the fruit drink are alleged to have caused severe health crisis for some consumers who drank them before it was discovered that they were infested with visible microbes. Ralph Tathagata reports one of the cases.

When Mr Wahal walked into a supermarket in Lagos to give a little treat of Hollandia milk to his boy who had accompanied him to a friend’s place, little did he know that little Mohammed was going to contract fruit poison from an allegedly contaminated fruit drink.

But that was what he got, shortly after the little boy took a couple of sips from a foil-sealed medium pack of Hollandia Pineapple and Coconut Yoghurt.

In Nigeria, several fruit drinks are commercially produced and marketed. However, the activities of some officially certified manufacturers of these commercial products create room for doubts whether there are policies on fruit drinks and other consumer goods produced and marketed in the country.

According to experts, there are policies, rules and regulations which establish specific or general standards and limits to which products, processes or conditions must comply with in accordance with relevant laws. Some of these regulations include processing techniques, the amount of fruit contents required for various drinks designations, the amount of added substances allowed in the form of sugar, acid, water, preservatives etc, as well as reasonable sanitary standards. These rules also extend to packaging since the quality of fruit drinks could easily be altered by poor packaging too.

In cases of contamination and subsequent adverse consequences on consumers’ health, there is no excuse for food business manufacturers and operators for failing to act to recall unsafe consumer goods from the shelves if there is evidence of crisis. The onus is firmly on the company involved to ensure that critical recall procedures are in place for the swift removal of unsafe food from the market place, when deemed necessary in the interest of consumer health.

In a relatively organized country, a company’s inability to recall an allegedly contaminated product can devastate its brand name, profitability, reputation and even leave it in ruins via litigations from consumers if it fails to manage the crisis very well.

Hollandia Pineapple and Coconut Yoghurt falls into this category.

Evidence of crisis

A supermarket owner in Lagos State (Identity withheld) reliably informed M2 that some of her foremost customers have threatened to bring the roof down after buying and consuming some of the fruit drinks in question.

“Innocent Mohammed picked a pack of the fruit drink while shopping with his father in my store. After sipping almost the whole liquid contents, he complained to his father that the Yoghurt is bad. Mr. Wahal who suspected that the drink must have expired collected it from his son and confirmed that it was okay going by the expiry date which reads 17 August, 2009.

“But when we decided to tear apart the tetra pack, behold, it was a nightmare,” the woman lamented. When Mohammed’s case got worse, he was rushed to a doctor who confirmed he had been poisoned. Presently, little Mohammed is still recuperating from severe stomach bug suspected to have been caused by the poisonous Chi Yoghurt.

It must be emphasized that the brand which reportedly caused the adverse reactions in Master Mohammed Wahal was Hollandia original (250 ml) with a supposed authentic NAFDAC Registration No: A1-2312, added to a Standard Organization of Nigeria’s (SON) logo and certification.

Further investigations revealed that all of the alleged products on the shelf of the supermarket, manufactured on 18 February 2009 to expire 17 August 2009 were contaminated with a yet unidentified substance.

Reportedly, many consumers have been using the fruit drinks with no problems and yet this particular set that bears BN: 00:25 and the above stated NAFDAC Reg. No. is posing severe health threat to consumers.

The supermarket owner told M2 that some calls put across to Chi customer care lines were picked by a staff of the company who identified herself as Sylvia and asked her to bring the said bad products to Chi’s office for compensation, rather than sending a Chi team to go and ascertain what the problem was.

M2 put several phone calls across the same customer care lines which were not picked for over a period of 45 minutes around 2.00 pm on a working day.

After a day interval, M2 persisted on knowing what exactly was happening to the Chi Yoghurt and what the company was doing to manage the crises. But a call put across to Mr. Lanre Majekodunmi, one of the reliable staffs of the company, on a GSM number he initially denied ownership but later admitted was his old line, incurred rebukes, warnings and vituperations from him.

However, Sylvia later picked one of the customer care lines and apologized on behalf of Majekondunmi, reasoning that the problem might have emanated from Chi’s factory and asked M2 to bring the evidence of the bad product to Chi’s office.

After a while, Majekodunmi called M2 after a suspected chastisement from V. C. Beri, MD, Chi Nigeria Ltd, who was emailed by M2 about one of his staff’s unruly conduct, and said that the alleged contaminated products will be recalled immediately. He suggested that the contamination of the product might have arisen from either improper storage or from Chi’s factory, as some of their 250 ml fruit drinks with foil sealing have had such problems in the past.

Attempt made to get exactly the same batch of the bad Yoghurt from other outlets in Lagos proved abortive suggesting that it might have been tactically withdrawn from other parts of Lagos.

The shelf life of the Hollandia Pineapple & Coconut Yoghurt drink is 6 months. However, no scientific experiment has been carried out on the product to ascertain the alleged cause of contamination.

M2 also alerted Paul Orhii, DG, NAFDAC who promised to take appropriate action and said, “Consumers and the regulatory authorities must be fully informed immediately if there is a withdrawal or recall of food and be told the reasons why.

“Food business operators” he explained “should be aware of how the national and international rapid alert systems operate so that they can react to any potential health danger posed quickly and effectively.”

“Lack of knowledge of these procedures will not be accepted as an excuse; the industry is legally obligated to be fully up to speed on current procedures. Similarly, food businesses that attempt to conceal potential health hazards will face severe penalties,” he added.