Lucknow: Coca Cola on Saturday questioned the credibility of the testing carried out by the non-governmental organisation Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which claimed that soft drink products in India contained high levels of pesticides.

"The CSE is not an accredited laboratory," Coca-Cola India vice-president (Technical) Asim Parekh told reporters here. He said so far no "fixed standards" had been set up for such kind of tests.

Last week, the CSE claimed that tests conducted on more than 50 samples of soft drinks sold by Coca-Cola India and PepsiCo India contained high levels of pesticide residues.

However, Mr. Parekh said that his company would welcome and support any move to set up standards.

"We just want that there must be a scientific basis behind the standard ...We are willing to work with the Government," he said. "It is an issue that concerns science and we should let the scientific community decide about the methodology for conducting tests."

He, however, remained evasive when asked to react on the ban imposed on Coke and Pepsi by the Kerala Government, saying he would not like to react to media reports. "Till last evening, we have not received any intimation about the reported ban on coke ... And we would not comment on media reports," he said.

Ready to cooperate: Pepsi

PepsiCo on Saturday said it was open to work with Sunita Narain's Centre for Scence and Environment, whose findings triggered the ban in Kerala.

"We are open to working with CSE and any other interested party to establish stricter science-based standards on finished products. We would welcome the opportunity to meet with CSE and any other interested party to discuss details of our methods and to gain a clearer understanding of theirs, to decide on a clear way forward in the interest of developing finished product standards for consumer safety," Pepsi said in a release here. — PTI

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