Around the same time as the first water quality campaign, in 1998, SPECS initiated a parallel campaign on Prevention and Detection of Adulteration in Food. This was only natural since both issues were about our two most life-giving resources which were potentially becoming unhealthy and harmful resources – water and food. And both were suffering from problems of impurity, lack of popular awareness and public apathy, and official mismanagement, negligence and corruption.
SPECS's Food Adulteration Testing Campaign is a proactive initiative focused on educating and training students, teachers, and the general public to evaluate the quality of their food.

The inception of this impactful campaign dates back to 1990, signifying its longstanding commitment to addressing food adulteration challenges. Over the years, SPECS's Food Adulteration Testing Campaign has evolved into a significant movement, empowering individuals with the tools and knowledge to scrutinize food quality and advocate for safer, unadulterated food consumption. One of the distinctive features of this campaign is its outreach. The initiative extends beyond educational institutions, encompassing testing activities along the revered Chardham routes and covering the entire Uttarakhand region annually. This comprehensive approach aims to assess and report on food quality, shedding light on the prevalence of adulteration in these areas.

This campaign was taken to both children and adults, and local surveys were done to find the extent of adulteration in our food products. In 2005, survey was done along the entire Badrinath-Kedarnath routes – two of the holiest shrines in Uttarakhand, which see lakhs and lakhs of pilgrims and tourists visiting it during the summer and monsoon months. At the peak of the pilgrim season, samples of food and food products were collected from shops, stores and other outlets. The findings, on analysis, were extremely disturbing – almost 98 % of the products collected were adulterated to some extent or the other. It was only the locally produced products which were found to be safe for consumption.