A west London food company has been fined after bringing potentially contaminated spices into the UK that may cause liver cancer. Southall-based Al Noor Ltd was ordered to pay a fine, victim surcharge, and costs totalling £9,424, while director Ahmed Akhlaq was ordered to pay a total of £3,285 over flouting food safety checks. Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court heard how Al Noor Ltd failed to notify port authorities in Suffolk over the spice shipment from Pakistan in May 2022, meaning the shipment was not properly checked.
It contained various ‘high risk’ spice mixes from Pakistan, Ealing Council said, which had been potentially contaminated with aflatoxins – carcinogens linked to liver cancer. Consuming aflatoxins can be poisonous and life threatening. Shipments containing these imported spices must be notified to the authorities and sampled, but Al Noor Ltd failed to do so, council officials said. As the shipment was removed from the port without checks, it legally should have been destroyed, with officials ordering Al Noor Ltd to do so within 60 days.
During a compliance check in July 2022, council officials discovered that more than half of the shipment was missing and unaccounted for, and at a later follow-up probe it was found the boxes had been relabelled and repacked. Ealing Council said the business only eventually destroyed the products 8 days after the 60-day deadline had expired. Cllr Kamaljit Nagpal, the council’s cabinet member for decent living incomes, said: “Obstructing food safety officers is a very serious offence and is not taken lightly by the council.
