All our soft drink products are of world-class quality : Pepsi

New Delhi: Pepsi has reiterated with utmost confidence that all its products meet all international standards and deliver only safe and world-class quality to consumers. "Specifically, with regard to any kind of pollutants, pesticides included, all Pepsi products meet and indeed better the most stringent testing standards."

The regular testing and the stringent quality norms for all soft drink products are what allow Pepsi to guarantee consistent quality and purity, a company press release said.

These test methods require specialised equipment and highly trained and experienced personnel to accurately detect pesticide residue at 0.1 part per billion levels, it added. "To provide an idea of the stringency of these standards, this is equivalent to measuring one second in 320 years."

The Indian government, the company said, has laid out processes of accreditation that are carried out by the National Accreditation Board for Testing & Calibration for Laboratories (NABL) to certify the capabilities of centres to carry out such tests. "The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) lab that has reported these results is not so accredited or certified (See Coke, Pepsi contain cocktail of pesticide residues, claims CSE)."

All soft drink products of Pepsi are tested against several stringent norms at the independent world-class VIMTA labs that are duly NABL accredited under ISO/IEC 17025, to confirm that all brands meet safety, purity and quality norms, the press release added. "These test results are regularly verified at Holland by TNO Nutrition & Food Research Labs, the major international referral point on such testing."

These reports pertaining to all Pepsi plants including those from where consumers receive product supply are available for scrutiny by all, claimed Pepsi. "The suspect data that CSE has put forth has been bench marked by them against EU norms (that are yet to be implemented even in Europe). These have then been presented as some kind of poison index with highly exaggerated claims of the damage that can be caused by such trace presence."

On a relative scale, Pepsi's bottled water and soft drinks are the safest among products of daily consumption, including regular drinking water, milk, tea, coffee, vegetables, and other agri-based items from the pesticide content perspective, the company said. "Bottled water and soft drinks go through the most advanced world-class manufacturing processes controlled by rigorous quality standards."