The home caterer with a bulging chutney bottle

1. Bulging, hissing chutney bottle - discard, do not resell

• Gas under pressure in a sealed bottle means microbial growth inside, not a filling error. In a tomato product the likely agents are Bacillus/Clostridium spores or yeasts surviving because the bottle was not sterilised and the fill was not hot enough.
• Tomato sits close to the danger line: pH around 4.2–4.6. If the recipe has sugar, onion and less acid, pH can rise above 4.6, and in an anaerobic sealed bottle that is exactly the condition Clostridium botulinum needs. Boiling destroys the toxin but not the spores; re-bottling a boiled product into the same unsterilised bottle recreates the risk. She also has no pH paper, so she cannot prove the product is acid enough.
• Decision: destroy the batch, keep a note, do not resell.

2. White velvety patch with musty smell on pickle - discard that jar

• The pickle is protected by high salt, acid and an oil layer, so surface growth is usually an aerobic film yeast or mould growing where the oil layer broke. A shallow surface mould in a high-acid, high-salt pickle can sometimes be removed with the top layer, but a musty smell means the mould has already produced off-flavours and possibly mycotoxins in the oil and brine.
• Decision: discard that jar. Inspect the rest: any jar with a broken oil seal, dull surface, or wet spoon contamination is suspect. Prevention is a dry spoon, a full oil layer, and 2–3 days of sun-curing at the start.

3. Loose motions after the squash - recall the batch

• The squash was diluted with tap water after bottling and the bottle was rinsed only in tap water. This points to coliform contamination from water and an unclean bottle, with no acid or heat step afterwards to protect the child.
• Decision: recall every bottle of that batch, refund, and for the future use boiled and cooled water, wash bottles with hot water and detergent, sanitise and hot-fill.

Priority 0 - the same evening (₹0)

1. Stop sale of all suspect batches and the squash; call the affected customers, refund, and record what was sold to whom. Unsafe food sold after a known complaint turns a mistake into an offence.
2. Tell the school canteen - supplying a school without a licence and after a complaint is the highest-risk exposure she has.

Priority 1 - this week (about ₹4,000) 3. Water: boil and cool all water used in the product; never use tap water for dilution. Reason: coliform contamination is the most probable cause of the child's illness. 4. Bottles: buy new bottles or wash reused ones with hot water and detergent, rinse, then sanitise by immersion in boiling water for 10 minutes and dry inverted. Reason: the bottle is the last surface the product touches. 5. pH strips (₹100–200) and a thermometer (₹300–500): acidify chutney with lemon or vinegar to pH below 4.6 and record it; hot-fill at 85–90 °C and invert the bottle. Reason: acid plus heat plus a sealed container is what makes a bottled product shelf-stable.

Priority 2 - this month (₹6,000–8,000) 6. FSSAI basic registration for a small home business (a few hundred rupees) and a simple label with product name, ingredients, net weight, date of manufacture, best-before and her address. 7. Separate raw and cooked work: one table for chopping raw mango and vegetables, another for filling; separate cloths; wash hands and utensils between steps. Reason: cross-contamination from raw produce and the family's own cooking. 8. Storage: a closed cupboard off the floor, never under a bed; cool, dark, dry, away from the kitchen steam. 9. Records: a one-page batch register (date, pH, temperature, bottles, buyer) so that a recall is possible in future.

What I would postpone: fancy packaging and new product lines. Fix water, bottles and pH first; they cause the illnesses.

Her legal position

• Under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, no person may manufacture, store or sell food without registration or licence, and no person may sell unsafe or substandard food. A home kitchen selling to neighbours and a school canteen is a 'food business' and needs at least basic registration.
• Selling a product that has caused illness can attract penalties even without intent; the bulging bottle and the mouldy jar are also 'unsafe food' by definition, independent of whether anyone fell ill.
• Ignorance of the science (no pH paper) is not a defence, but prompt recall, refund and correction are strong mitigating facts if the matter is examined.

What I would advise her to do

1. Apologise in writing, refund in full, and ask for the batch details. Do not argue about whether the child's illness was caused by the squash - investigate, don't deny.
2. Recall the batch voluntarily and record what was returned and destroyed.
3. Correct the causes before resuming: potable water, sanitised bottles, pH below 4.6, hot fill, licence application filed.
4. Keep records of the complaint, the refund, the destruction and the corrections. These are her evidence of good faith.
5. Cooperate fully if an officer visits: show the register, the licence application, the pH strips and the recall notes.

What she must not do

• Must not resell the boiled chutney, relabel old stock, or quietly drop the school supply without telling them.
• Must not offer money to the customer to keep quiet, or ask the customer to sign a false statement.
• Must not keep selling while the correction is pending 'because stock is already paid for'. Two ₹2,400 batches are a small loss against a food-safety penalty and the loss of every future order.