The Kumasi zonal office of the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) yesterday destroyed 152 cartons of seized turkey tails in the Kumasi metropolis. The banned items were seized from the Greater Hope Cold Store at Dunkirk in Kumasi on Thursday following a tip-off. They were taken to the metropolitan landfill site at Oti yesterday and destroyed under the supervision of the FDB's Zonal Officer for the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions, Mr Joseph Bennie. Mr Bennie explained that Mr Emmanuel Azare, the owner of the cold store, told officers from the FDB that the items did not belong to him but had been deposited at his cold store by a client. He said Mr Azare would be surcharged with the cost of destruction and face other punitive measures after investigations. Labels on the destroyed turkey tails indicated that they had been imported from Italy and had been packed in cartons of 10kg. The FDB, in its quest to safeguard public safety, has been conducting investigations into the distribution and sale of turkey tails in the Kumasi metropolis to establish the availability and distribution of the product on the market. The rationale is to initiate the appropriate regulatory procedure to withdraw the product from the market and identify the importers and distributors and bring them in line with the law. The cold rooms of a number of cold stores within the commercial area of the Kumasi metropolis, such as Asafo, have since been inspected but no fresh turkey tails were found. According to Mr Bennie, the only turkey products found in the cold stores were turkey wings packed in 10kg and 15kg cartons. He said the fat content in turkey tails exceeded the 15 per cent maximum limit as stipulated in the Ghana Standard for products. Turkey tails, according to the FDB, contained a good proportion of saturated fats which were associated with high cholesterol levels. The importation of the product had been banned outrightly due to the established causal link between high cholesterol levels and some known cardiovascular diseases. According to the FDB, it had come to its attention that there was an illicit trade of the banned product in the Kumasi metropolis, hence the exercise to clamp down on the illegal activity. Source: Daily Graphic