PepsiCo to file petition challenging Kerala govt order

CHENNAI: PepsiCo will file a petition in the Kerala High Court on Friday challenging the Kerala government's August 11 order banning the sale of some of its products in the state.

"It is unfair to ban the sale of our products on the basis of findings of a non-governmental organisation. We are challenging the ban," PepsiCo Chairman Rajeev Bakshi told reporters today.

He said Pepsi's products were "absolutely safe" and dubbed the findings of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which had claimed presence of pesticide residues above permissible limits in Pepsi and Coca Cola softdrinks, as wrong.

Bakshi said he was prepared to subject his products to all sorts of tests to prove that they were absolutely safe.

With the standards for carbonated soft drinks yet to be developed, the company was prepared to subject itself to checks for residue levels in each of the input, which went into the soft drink, he said.

"We are open to work with the CSE or any other interested parties to establish stricter science based standards on the finished products of the soft drinks sector, which is not available in the world so far", he said.

Asked whether PepsiCo would challenge the findings of CSE in a court, he said "time is not appropriate for this now. Our first priority is consumer safety," he said.

He said PepsiCo had no objection for banning the sale of its soft drinks in primary schools. "In fact, we do not encourage the sale of our products at primary schools. We do not even employ child artistes below 12 years for our adverstisement campaign," he said.