Cheating hits the Egyptians' most famous spice: black pepper from colored flour

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In an incident that shocked Egyptians, commercial fraud reached black pepper, the most famous spice that the people of Egypt use in preparing their food.

The regulatory authorities in the Beni Suef Governorate in southern Egypt revealed a large-scale commercial fraud operation, during which adulterated black peppercorns were manufactured from poor materials and subsidized flour to be put on the market as an original product.

The goal is to achieve illegal profits at the expense of citizens' safety.

The details of the incident are due to the regional branch of the Consumer Protection Agency in Beni Suef Governorate receiving a complaint through the unified government complaints portal in the Council of Ministers, stating that there is a food facility in the Al-Wasta Center operating without a license and manufacturing adulterated black peppercorns.

A campaign immediately went to the facility's headquarters to examine the report, and although the project owner denied the validity of the complaint, stressing that his activity was limited to manufacturing animal feed, field inspections revealed the presence of fraud in the manufacture of black pepper.

The supervisory committees’ inspection revealed the devious methods used by the facility to imitate black peppercorns with the aim of misleading consumers and perfumers. It relied on flour allocated to municipal bakeries, preparing poor quality dough and shaping it into small spherical grains that match the size of natural peppercorns.

It was also shown that the dough grains were painted with dark black artificial colors to give them a shiny appearance that completely resembles the original product.

The inspection revealed that the owner of the facility is adding materials that give the dough a taste and flavor similar to pepper, while incorporating these granules with small amounts of real black pepper to camouflage the fraud before putting the quantities on the market.

The campaign resulted in the seizure of all production requirements, raw materials, dyeing materials, and counterfeit products, the total weight of which reached 996 kilograms. The necessary report was prepared, and the necessary legal measures were taken in preparation for submitting it to the competent investigation authorities.