An unfavourable test report by the Central Food Lab in Kolkata has led the canteen stores department (CSD) to suspend sales of Patanjali’s Amla juice, the Economic Times reported today.Started in 1948, the CSD is the retailer for India’s defence forces with selling nearly 5,300 products to about 12 million personnel of the Indian defence services, including their families and ex-servicemen. The Ministry of Defence manages the CSD which comprises 3,901 unit-run canteens, and 34 depots, and accounts for nearly 5-7 percent of total sales volumes for most consumer product companies.

In a letter dated April 3, the CSD is said to have asked all its retailing depots to make debit notes for their current stock of the product so that it can be returned to the company.

Incidentally, the same lab in Kolkata had detected high lead levels and MSG in the samples of Nestle Maggi noodles two years ago, that had led Nestle to withdraw the brand across India. The company was able to get the product back on the shelf after a long-drawn legal battle and millions in losses.

For Patanjali, Amla juice was the product that helped it strengthen its foothold in the Indian consumer market and enter more than two-dozen other categories.

However, it is not the first time that the Rs 5,000-crore Ayurved company will be locking horns with the regulators. The company has been questioned for selling noodles and pasta without the requisite licences, and had faced flak from the FSSAI over the allegedly misleading advertisements for its edible-oil products.