A small ice-cream producer in Pakistan has gone on the war path with country's largest ice-cream maker, Walls Ice Cream, by saying that its product cannot be classified as an ice-cream under the existing food laws of the country.

Ajaz Ahmad, the chief of Lahore-based Yummy's Ice Cream, which has a national market share of 5 per cent, contends that Lever Brothers, the multinational which manufactures and markets Walls ice-cream in the country, has wrongly led the government's food department into classifying its products, made from non-dairy vegetable fats, as ice-cream. Ajaz warns that if this practice is allowed, "There will come a time that other non-dairy fats, like pig-fat, may be imported into Pakistan and used unchecked in ice-creams."

He says that the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), the country's premier industrial research body, does not have the facility to tell the difference between various non-dairy fats. "How can they then tell the difference?" he argues. Ahmad wants the Walls products to be called non-dairy desserts, which in turn can be monitored separately.

This statement has made Lever Brothers see red, and with good reason. Muslims, who make up 95 per cent of Pakiastan's population, consider pigs unclean and react strongly to any association with them. "Even brushes made from pig-bristles are shunned," says Abdul Qayyum, a hardware importer.

Before the issue reaches epic proportions, Lever has hit back. It has threatened to sue Ahmad for defamation if he does not issue an apology. Lever Brothers has also issued a press statement that it has not misled the government and calls its product `non-dairy ice cream'.

The Pakistan Standards Institute (PSI) has already held meetings on the question of what can be called an ice-cream, and more important, what cannot. Competitiors want the government to declare the product as `Mellorine', the name with which it is called in other countries. Lever is reluctant to do so. Aamer Saiyid, the company secretary, says, "If I said Mellorine, you wouldn't know what I was talking about."

Saiyid says that competitors are trying to confuse the issue by bringing in the element of pig fat. "People know the product as ice-creams and we want it to remain that way," says another company official.

Competitors are understandably upset with Lever Brothers. In 1994, the company introduced Walls Ice Cream in Pakistan, the first international ice-cream to be launched on such a large scale. Previously, Movenpick Ice-cream was made under licence by the then largest ice-cream company, Polka Group, which employed 700 people and enjoyed a sales turnover of Rs 725 million in 1995.