New Delhi: US majors PepsiCo and Coca-Cola on August 15 joined hands to caution against "blind" adoption of European norms as these could have serious implications on Indian economy, while asserting compliance with European Union (EU) standards for their brand products sold in the country.

"There are no standards for pesticides in soft drinks anywhere in the US or European Union. EU norms only specify that the water used in soft drinks should be potable.....we are meeting EU norms on source water in India with total pesticide levels well below the permissible 0.5ppb," chairman of PepsiCo India Holdings Rajeev Bakshi said.

He said blindly adopting EU standards is an ill-conceived strategy, fraught with risk both in qualitative and quantitative terms for a developing country like India which would make 90 per cent of its groundnut crop inedible, liquid milk undrinkable and processed milk products unusable.

Taking the Centre for Science and Environment to task, Bakshi said, "We have sufficient doubts that CSE's report is erroneous. It has used suspect testing methods...it has created panic."

A Coca-Cola spokesperson said, "Our products are of unimpeachable quality not only in India but across the world. If the government decides to bring in any new norms, we will comply with those too."

Bakshi said the lab used by CSE was neither accredited nor recognised, and could not have helped with cross-references of results arrived at in a particular lab.

PTI