Lagos Govt: Nagiko Tomato Fit for Public Consumption

Oluchi Chibuzor

The Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency( LASCOPA) has given its approval for public consumption of Nagiko tomato manufactured by Erisco Foods Nigeria Limited.

This is as the state agency stressed that the product does not pose any health hazard to the consuming public.

This was disclosed in a statement  signed by the General Manager, LASCOPA, Afolabi Solebo, and posted on the Lagos State Government’s website.

Nagiko tomato was subjected to laboratory tests upon a complaint from a Facebook user, Chioma Egoji, who had published a ‘negative’ review of the product on September 17, 2023.

Egoji claimed that the tomato paste had too much sugar content after she had tasted it.

However, to authenticate Egoji’s claim, Solebo said that LASCOPA embarked on an independent investigation by inviting Erisco Foods, the producer of the product and Egodi to two different meetings held on October 3 and 10,  2023.

Solebo said: “The outcome of the meetings informed the decision of LASCOPA to request for samples of the product which were subsequently taken to the laboratory for test and analysis as well as to ascertain the conformity of the sets of parameters  of the product samples to establish if the product is safe for consumption or otherwise.

“It must be noted that two samples of the product were taken from Erisco Foods Company and another two sets of samples were obtained from a market survey by LASCOPA to balance and ensure a true reflection of the state of the product from both the company and the market.

“The laboratory analysis of the two sets of samples collected for Microbial and Physicochemical tests showed that the product passed all the tested parameters and it is safe for consumption based on the outcome of the test conducted.”