Investigations conducted by POS Foundation, a human rights organisation, have revealed that products branded by Fanmilk Company Limited - such as FANYOGO, FANMILK and TAMPICO - have no inscriptions on their products to indicate dates of expiration, thereby posing a very serious health danger to consumers.
It further revealed that even those with inscriptions on them were just some numerical strips with no words indicating whether they were manufacturing or expiring dates.
The investigation was initiated when Jonathan Osei Owusu, Executive Director of POS Foundation, was allegedly poisoned after consuming Fan Yoghourt, one of the products of Fanmilk Company Limited.
According to Jonathan Osei Owusu, he consumed the product (the sachet type) somewhere in August 2009, and realised that the taste and scent were extremely different from the normal ones he always consumed.
"Within a short period, whilst on my way to the office I developed a sharp pain in the stomach and was rushed to a nearby drug store for first aid......I was subsequently taken to the Manna Mission Hospital at Nungua for treatment on the same day. After treatment, the pain reduced but I suffered a negative health condition for some weeks before getting back to normalcy."
He claimed that when his health condition was still deteriorating within a period of about ten days, he reported the matter to the Legal Aid Board for redress and Fanmilk Company Limited was summoned to a meeting which was attended by the company's brand manager, Mr. Gbologa Dziedwow, with Mr. Jonathan Owusu in attendance.
Evidenced by the remaining sachet (spoilt Fan Yoghourt) which was sent before the Board, and examined for having no expiry dates, Jonathan Owusu said the brand manager agreed to settle the case out of court and so he sent his e-mail address to the Executive Director of POS Foundation to officially send the claims to him (Gbologa) for settlement.
The claim was to insist on having legible expiry dates on the products as well as compensation to cover his (Jonathan Owusu's) medical bills.
Finally, Jonathan Owusu said he requested to be on an extensive health care at the expense of Fan Milk Ltd, to avoid any future health complications - a request that was not heeded to.
A cross-section of the general public interviewed by some members of the Foundation and a team of journalists said they could easily read the expiry labels on other products such as Ideal Milk; Lucozade and Voltic bottled water, but could not at all find any on Fan Yoghourt.
Jonathan told this paper that some of the bottled Tampico had some legible expiry dates but most of them had only a month to expire.
A letter dated 8th July, 2010 was sent to the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) by POS Foundation on the subject of no expiry dates on Fanmilk products. Subsequent exchange of calls within these two bodies (POS Foundation and FDB) led to a meeting on the 9th August 2010, at the office of the Ag. Head, Food Inspectorate Department-FDB.
The discussion involved four people and centred on the findings of the investigative team and was later discovered that there were no legible expiry dates on the company's products.
In a quick response to Mr. Gbologa's claim that expiry dates appear on his company's products, Jonathan Owusu replied in a phone interview that he had about fifty of those products with no inscriptions of expiry dates.
A lady at the office of Fanmilk Company Limited, who said her name was Harriet, also said on a phone conversation with this reporter that "We have expiry dates on all our products, you can go and buy one for yourself and check ...it has been a long time when people started buying Fanmilk products....masa, there are lots of imported foreign products which have expired; people buy them everyday, and nobody complains."
Mr. Ocansey, Public Relations Officer of the company, also insisted that there were expiry dates on all their products. He said, "We don't write expiry dates, but what we normally write is 'best before, batch number then the figures follow."
The sales and the marketing manager of Fanmilk Company, Mr Eric Duah, articulated that his company had operated for so many years, and if it did not meet requirements of the Food and Drugs Board, it would not have been given the nod to operate.
Source: Crusading Guide
