Rogue maize millers put profit above consumers’ health

Rogue millers are deliberately processing aflatoxin-contaminated maize and putting it on shop shelves for quick gains, market surveillance data has revealed.

Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), the national agency that checks quality of consumer goods says its market intelligence shows that some of the manufacturers are deliberately handling harmful grains to save costs, endangering the lives of millions of consumers.

The unruly processors, Kebs says, buy bad maize knowingly at lower than market prices to pad their profit margins.

The poisonous flour is then offloaded to supermarket chains and retail shops at cheaper prices to entice budget-conscious consumers.

In a swoop conducted last week, Kebs withdrew some 27 brands of maize meal and composite flour brands from the market in a move that deeply irked the Cereal Manufacturers Association (CMA).

Kebs Director for Market Surveillance, Mr Peter Kaigwara, told Nation that the flours ordered for withdrawal from the market had high levels of aflatoxin, some up to more than 10 times the minimum allowable limits. Aflatoxin can cause food poisoning and cancer if consumed in high doses over a long period of time.

“Kenyans are heavily dependent on ugali as a staple with per capita maize grains consumption estimated to be between 60 – 103 kg/year and ranks highly in the maize consumption index with estimates of upto 171 grams per person per day. This looked at against the fact that certain segments of the population consume maize meal at a higher frequency and in higher quantities is indicative that the danger of aflatoxicosis looms large in the country,” Mr Kaigwara said.

Kebs says it is mostly the poor who end up buying the cheaper flour brands, unknowingly consuming the poison.

After ordering withdrawal of the products from the shelves, CMA came out guns blazing, accusing Kebs of harming millers’ businesses and reputation by failing to follow due process before issuing the public notice on August 20.

“Kebs should have followed due process, by first reaching out to the affected millers to verify, validate results for each specific batch and resolve matters expeditiously prior to going public. This would have been the most effective way of dealing with the matter, ensuring that it does not happen again and making sure proper recall procedure for specific batches rather than in its entirety, were followed to get the products off the shelf as effectively as possible. It is unfortunate that some of our millers who appeared in the press release have still not been informed about why they were ‘non-compliant’,” CMA said in a statement last weekend.

Claiming to run a self-regulation programme, CMA said its members are required to share their aflatoxin test results in a monthly data collection. The association did not indicate what previous results have shown.

But Kebs insists that protection of lives comes first when it comes to warning consumers against harmful products.

“The higher priority is to protect the public against unsafe products as the Standards Act mandates us and also is the right thing to do. Taking action on non-compliances/non-compliant products does not have to wait for communication to be done to the respective manufacturer, especially where there is risk to human health and safety. Of urgency is to deal with the risk as fast as possible,” Mr Kaigwara said.

Interestingly, even though Kebs confirmed that by Tuesday it had not given greenlight to any of the suspended brands being taken back to shelves, a spotcheck by the Nation at two different supermarkets within the Nairobi CBD revealed that two products were still on display.

The products are Famila Natures Food The Original Ujimix (sour porridge), produced by Unga Ltd and Pembe maize meal, produced by Pembe Flour Mills Ltd.

It was not clear why the two brands were still in the shelves despite the order for their withdrawal, due to the harm they pose to consumers.

Kebs says it expects information from affected millers on quantities that had already been sold to consumers and those that were taken back from the market.

It is not the first time the agency has caught various flour brands with high levels of aflatoxin and other cases of substandard products, since in January last year, another inspection led to the suspension of 17 maize flour brands. This was just three months after in November 2019, some five brands were also found to have high levels of aflatoxin.

“Given the significance of maize and its derived products in Kenya, Kebs has put maize meal and composite flour in the categories of products desirous of constant surveillance and monitoring,” the agency announced in August last year.

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