A TOTAL of 14 cooking oil packaging factories in the state were subject to spot checks to allay the public’s fears that used cooking oil was being repackaged and sold.

In Ipoh, no suspicious activity was reported in four of the factories subjected to the spot check last Friday.

The spot checks were conducted simultaneously across the state by the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism, Malaysian Palm Oil Board (Butterworth Port Office) and State Health Department.

State Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Datuk Samsudin Abu Hassan hoped the findings would put to rest rumours that unscrupulous parties were repackaging used cooking oil collected from traders to be sold again.

The spot checks were conducted in light of an article published in a Malay daily recently, alleging that almost 90% of cooking oil sold in the country were made from recycling used cooking oil.

The daily quoted Islamic Consumer Association of Malaysia (PPIM) chief activist Datuk Nadzim Johan as saying that used cooking oil from fast food outlets were bought to be recycled and mixed with new cooking oil, which is later sold in packets.