50% of snacks sold in schools unhealthy: BOMP
A. Junaidi, , The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) announced on Thursday that about 50 percent of the snacks sold in schools were unhealthy, but admitted that no significant action had been taken agaist the food producers.
BPOM chief Sampoerno said during a press conference that the agency took 193 samples of snacks from schools in 10 provinces throughout 2003 and found that half of the samples contained substances harmful to children.
"The snacks were not up to health standards. We have reminded related agencies to pay attention to our findings as it would affect all of our children," he said.
Sampoerno said many of the snacks were found to contain preservatives and dyes commonly used in the textile industry.
"But almost all of the unhealthy snack producers are home industries. We just did not have the heart to punish them but did reprimand them and tighten controls on them," he claimed.
Last year, a research center, the Public Interest Research and Advocacy Center (PIRAC) discovered that 13 kinds of snacks contained monosodium glutamate (MSG) but failed to mention it on their packages as required by consumer protection regulations.
Some of the brands popular among children are produced by major, established companies.
Regular consumption of MSG may cause liver problems, trauma, hypertension, stress, fever, allergic reactions, nausea, migraine headaches, asthma, depression and eventually neurological damage.
The government has enacted Law No. 8/1999 on consumer protection and Government Regulation No. 69/1999 on labeling and advertisement of food products.
Sampoerno said his agency also destroyed 1,812 food items which were sold as parcels for the Idul Fitri Muslim holiday, Christmas and New Year in its operation in 908 shops in Jakarta between November and December last year.
He said many of the items in the parcels had expired, were damaged or contained substances which were not mentioned in their labels.
Sampoerno refused to identify the food items or their producers.
"We preferred not to take legal action as it would not be really effective. Based on our experience, the violators are just given lenient sentences, such as suspended jail terms and small fines," he said.
The agency, he said had cooperated with police in upholding the law. There were 250 violations related to drugs, 36 cases on food, 30 cases on traditional medicines and three cases on cosmetics that were brought to the courts last year.
He said the courts only sentenced the violators to between 15 days and one year in jail or fined them between Rp 15,000 (US$1.7) and Rp 10 million.
Separately, the chairman of the Health Consumer Protection Foundation Marius Widjajanto said BPOM's announcement was useless as no legal actions followed.
"The announcement was just ceremonial. BPOM didn't tell us the companies or the products," Marius told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. He said he had reported a number of companies to the agency but never received satisfactory responses.
He is disappointed that the agency only targeted small home businesses, and ignored the large companies.
"So, we warn consumers to increase their awareness and not merely depend on BPOM," he said.