Kerala woman finds snake skin in food packet

A fragment of snake skin was found on Thursday in a food parcel bought at a hotel located in the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram. The incident comes close on the heels of a girl’s death due to ingestion of contaminated food.

The snake skin scrap was found by a woman who had bought the food packet for her daughter from a hotel in Nedumangad, in the suburbs of the city. Food safety authorities subsequently raided the hotel, and found that it was functioning under unhygienic conditions. The hotel was then shut down.

The incident follows the recent death of a 16-year-old girl, who along with 30 other students got food poisoning after eating shawarma from a Kasargod bakery. Tests on samples from their stomach contents had confirmed presence of shigella and E.coli bacteria.

After the death and the food poisoning incident, state-wide raids were conducted by food safety authorities. More than 110 hotels across the state were shut down for operating in unhygienic conditions and supplying stale food.

According to food safety officials, hotels that have been closed, would be allowed to reopen only after all the shortcomings were addressed, and hygiene factors were up to standard.