Court orders arrest of Nestlé Bangladesh, MGI bosses

A Dhaka court handling food fraud cases has issued arrest warrants against three individuals for producing, importing and marketing substandard food products.

Special Metropolitan Magistrate Nusrat Sahara Bithi issued the arrest warrants on Monday after two separate cases were filed against the three individuals of Nestle Bangladesh Limited and Meghna Sugar Refinery Limited, a sister concern of Meghna Group of Industries.

The suspects are Dipal Abe Bikrama, managing director of Nestle Bangladesh Limited, and Riasad Zaman, public policy manager of the same organisation, and Mostofa Kamal, the owner of Meghna Sugar Refinery Limited.

“These two are famous food producers, but they have been selling substandard products, putting public health at risk,” said Kamrul Hasan, a food inspector at Dhaka South City Corporation, who started the cases.

The first case was filed following a test that found chocolate-coated wafer, produced by KitKat, to be substandard. The dairy food product was tested in two parts, examining the wafer biscuit in the sample and its chocolate coating separately.

According to the case, the wafer biscuit contained 2.32 percent acidity against the permitted level of a maximum 1 percent as set in the Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution standards.

Chocolate used in the coating contained 9.31 percent milk solids against the approved range of 12 to 14 percent. Milk fat content in the same product was measured at 1.23 percent, below the approved limit of 2.5 to 3.5 percent.

High acidity indicates decomposition, said the food inspector, or simply implies that the food is rotten.

The presence of lower milk solids and milk fat than the standard limit indicates the absence of milk in the food, which is marketed as a dairy product, the food inspector said.

The tests have been conducted at a government food safety laboratory, according to officials.

With regard to the second case, a sample of sugar, produced by the MGI, was found to have contained 77.35 percent sucrose against the minimum permissible level of 99.70 percent.

The same sugar sample tested positive in the sulfur dioxide test, containing 0.08ppm. There should have been no presence of sulfur dioxide in the sugar, according to the BSTI standards.

Sulfur dioxide is a preservative and is used for artificially whitening sugar, said the food inspector.

The low presence of sucrose indicates use of artificial sweeteners instead of sugar.

KitKat has been marketing its products without any approval and certification by the BSTI, the case statement alleged.

A chocolate-coated wafer produced in Bangladesh costs a maximum of Tk 20, the case statement argued, but the one marketed by KitKat, after it has been imported from India, sells in Bangladesh between Tk 60 and Tk 135.

The court has fixed Dec 15 as the next date for hearing the cases.

One of the suspects, Riasad Zaman said he did not have an immediate comment on the matter. He sought time to prepare a comment by tomorrow.

Nestle Bangladesh’s Company Secretary Debabrata Roy Chowdhury said the BSTI had no standard developed for products like KitKat.

“The standard that they have is for chocolate biscuits. We have an NOC from them in this regard,” he said.

“Our product is tested by another government institution, BCSIR. Each consignment is released only after being tested at the BCSIR,” he said.

KitKat is imported from Dubai and India, he said.