October 14: A joint monitoring team comprising of Consumer Protection Committee and human rights activists under the initiative of Kathmandu Metropolitan City has found around 2,000 quintals of expired butter in the warehouse of Dairy Development Corporation (DDC) at Balaju.

According to the committee, the monitoring team found 194,975 kg of expired and unlabeled butter used for making ghee during the market monitoring conducted on Tuesday. Its market price is around Rs 160 million.

Upon reaching the Balaju-based DDC plant, the monitoring team found a pile of garbage, foul smell and chemicals leaking from the machineries.

Hari Bahadur Bhandari, chief of the market monitoring team, said that the four warehouses were monitored on the basis of a complaint that food items including ghee and butter sold from the warehouse of DDC in Balaju had expired.

According to him, the amount of butter was brought by the DDC from Sujal Dairy in Pokhara in four lots. The butter was brought twice in November and December 2019. The other two lots were brought in January and February 2020. It has been more than eight months since the butter was produced. He informed that the DDC has been sending it for sale in the market even after the expiration date.

“We have collected the samples and sent for examination for confirmation as DDC has been claiming that the products have not expired,” he said.

DDC, on the other hand, has been claiming that the products have not expired. General Manager of DDC Rudra Prasad Poudel has claimed that the butter can be used for one and a half years if it is kept at a temperature of -18 to -20 degrees Celcius. According to him, the milk bought by DDC from the farmers was sent to Sujal Dairy in Pokhara to be powdered and the butter was extracted from the milk.