By Mabinty M. Kamara
Consumers of one of the most popular locally produced beverages – Sierra Juice – have expressed concern over safety of one of its products.
The Tropical flavor, which is one of the newest of the company’s products in the market, raised suspicion after its price was suddenly reduced. And a closer inspection revealed that it contains black particles.
While the company said this has to do with the raw material used in the manufacture of the product, the reduction in the price and the seeming clandestine manner it is being sold further raised suspicion in the consuming public.
Sierra Juice produces about half a dozen flavors, including mango, ginger and pineapple. Tropical, a cocktail of mango, pineapple and banana flavours, was only recently introduced into the market.
A crate for all the Sierra Juice products officially sells at Le 45,000, with a bottle costing Le5, 000.
The suspicion about its safety arose after some dealers started selling it half the official price, which is Le2, 500 per bottle, with the create going for Le30, 000.
Some concerned consumers said the drink has expired. But a closer look at the container indicates that it’s just weeks away from expiry, when Politico investigated the issue back in early September.
Three samples collected by this reporter displayed different expiry dates. One was scheduled to expire on October 4th, 2020, with the others having diverse dates of expiry, but all of them within this same month.
One shop was spotted at Paterson Zochonis in PZ, Freetown, where the drinks were on sale at the reduced price. A shop boy, who introduced himself as Pakalay, was selling them in front of the Lebanese owned shop. It turned out that he was selling for the Lebanese who had a huge stockpile in the shop.
Pakalay said they were auctioning it because it had taken too long in the shop as a result of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
“We were not able to sell much. That is why we are selling it at this price. But when people see us selling it this way and with these things (black particles) in them, they think it has expired. But it has not. If you want I can give you one to taste,” Pakalay offered.
The shop boy went on to say that the manufacturer told them that the particles in the drink were seeds of the bananas used to produce it.
Thomas Alfred, Sales Manager at the Sierra Juice Company, told Politico same when contacted, although he said he wasn’t aware that anyone was selling the drink at a reduced price.
“These are Banana seeds; we are now using natural banana in our products. In Tropical and Pineapple, you can find those things in them because we use natural pineapples. And for tropical, we use natural bananas and they are ripe. So they have big seeds inside,” explained Alfred, who challenged Politico to take the product to anywhere for testing to ascertain their position that it’s safe for consumption.
Alfred even requested for the address of the shop that was selling the drink at Le2, 500 so that he could buy everything from them at the price they were selling at.
“We sell the dozen at Le 42,000…Show me the shop that is selling it at Le30, 000 and I will buy all the available quantities from the shop and I will give you Le2, 000 as commission for each,” he said.
Alfred went on to explain that when a juice expires, the bottle expands, stressing that the bottles containing the drinks in question were in perfect shape.
When Politico contacted the Sierra Leone Standards Bureau (SLSB) for testing of the suspected product, with a view of allaying fears of the consumers, officials at the government agency responsible for product certification had no idea about the issue.
Tamba Kamanda, Assistant Director of Product Certification at the SLSB, found time to explain to Politico that there were many factors that could be responsible for a juice to go bad, one of which, he noted, could be the condition of the storage facility. He also cited the duration of the product from the date of manufacturing.
Mr. Kamanda further noted that it was good that people were coming onboard to give information to the product certifying agency about products in the market, noting that they could not possibly be everywhere at the same time and therefore were not in a position to know about every expired product in the market.
But, surprisingly, the agency wouldn’t test the product unless Politico paid for the service, even though they acknowledged that it’s for public service purpose.
Testing the product costs Le1, 600,000.
Kamanda said they insisted on payment before testing because SLSB relies on such as source of income to monitor the market in line with its mandate, noting that they were not getting the needed support from the government to carry out their operations.
Auctioning of goods always provokes public suspicion in Sierra Leone, due to the widely held belief that the market is inundated with expired goods.
Yet for many other Sierra Leoneans, such products are highly attractive because they are cheap and affordable, even though they have significant health implications.
Few days after Politico visited the SLSB, we learnt that Sierra Juice went there for its second product certification exercise for the second half of the year.
Copyright © 2020 Politico Online
