[Edit: This article was updated with AVA's Facebook statement and clarification issued in the evening of Oct. 9]

Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Well, turns out for importers of the latest instant hotpots food fad, they paid dearly after authorities in Singapore clamped down on their sale.

Self-heating hotpots

Self-heating hotpots, all the rage in China now, only require room temperature water and 20 minutes to satisfy your spicy mala cravings:

Importers fined, products seized by AVA

These hotpots can be found on Qoo10, Shopee, and even Carousell.

But here's the thing: They're not approved by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).

Here are listings from Carousell:

And here's one on Shopee:

On Monday, Oct. 9, AVA said in a statement reported by The Straits Times that it has fined all local importers of the hotpots, and seized the stock they had on them.

In a Facebook statement published on the same day, it said:

"AVA has not approved the import and sale of [instant hotpots which contain meat]....Food products containing meat can only be imported from approved sources that comply with AVA food safety standards and requirements, as these products could carry animal and food-borne diseases of public health."

AVA also went on to advise consumers to 'purchase food from reputable sources' such as the online stores of major supermarkets and retailers.

Accredited by AVA?

On the Facebook page of one of the known suppliers, Joneve Trading, one of its posts from April claims their hot pots are "accredited with AVA license & customs import approval permit, perfectly safe to consume", and even cautions customers against "anyhow buy(ing) from unreliable source, as the market already flooded with replicas".

Not only that, the company also claims "we are official Singapore distributor" of the instant hotpots, and additionally invites people to join them as resellers:

Included in the Facebook post above is what the company claims to be an AVA cargo clearance permit for "instant pack food" containing "(vegetables), vermicelli, sesame oil, base soup, quail egg":

Now, even if this were a legitimate permit from the AVA, the ingredients listed in the permit image above certainly don't include any type of meat.

In an email reply to Mothership.sg, AVA clarified that that the permit supplied above by Joneve Trading was for food items "which do not contain meat and seafood", meaning that Joneve Trading made a false declaration as the hotpot products imported by the company contained meat.

But The Straits Times featured these previously

Interestingly, in July this year, ST published an article about these hotpots, and produced a video on what their article's headline declared was a new "food craze".

In it, food writer Rebecca Lynne Tan rated the hotpot "not bad" and also "authentic" in terms of taste.

It gets even more interesting: Tan's report also included an interview with one of the importers, Eve Lim -- which is how we know that Joneve Trading is one of the main importers of the product:

The article also noted that Lim was going to launch another variation of these, in November:

And it also very helpfully mentioned two other companies selling the hotpots here: Bashulanren Singapore and 1stShop.

ST also learned from Ba Shu Lan Ren that it had at least six suppliers here (since the information was accurate about three months ago).

[related_story]

This nuance didn't go unnoticed by some readers on ST's latest story either:

How it works

The containers come with heat packs that are activated by room temperature water to produce enough heat to cook the ingredients that come with it. These can include rice, a mala soup base and vegetables, and some contain meat too.

To use it, you empty the mala soup base into the inner layer of the box (there are two). You then empty the vegetable, meat and noodle packets on top of it and add some water for the soup. If there is rice, you'll need to add a specified amount of water to that too.

In the outer layer, you put the heat pack at the bottom outer layer of the box, and then pour room temperature water to activate its heating mechanism. Cover the whole thing and it'll be all done in 15 minutes.

Top images via Qoo10 and Carousell