Bakery products with fake approval seals of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) are mushrooming in the district and creating health hazards, according to sources.
Flour-based products – such as breads, biscuits, cakes, pies and pastries – are being baked in mostly unregistered bakeries that use toxic chemicals to improve their taste and colour.
These bakeries usually cater to a young clientele, especially to underage youths, living in the rural areas where people have a poor awareness of food quality.
Sources say, at least 84 bakeries sprang up in the five upazilas of the district in the last three years; of them, only five have BSTI approval to produce and sell baked goods.
The 79 unlicensed ones are allegedly producing substandard and chemically treated goods, to sell to groceries and bakery shops.
These goods are all labelled with the same manufacturing company – Special Food Products, Lalmonirhat Bangladesh – and have BSTI seals of approval on top of their plastic covers.
Wising anonymity, a bakery owner at the Durakuti Hut area said, “We purchase plastic packets containing labels of BSTI and Special Food Products, Lalmonirhat Bangladesh, from two shops at the Uttara Cinema Road and BDR Road in Lalmonirhat town.”
“We then package our products and sell them,” he said, acknowledging that bakery owners sometimes use toxic chemicals to improve food colour.
Dr Jahangir Alam Sarker, civil surgeon of Lalmonirhat, underlined the health hazards of eating these products, citing children who were hospitalised with foodborne illnesses in recent times.
“There are many children who fell sick after eating low-quality bakery products. Some of the common diseases are dysentery, diarrhoea and liver-related complications,” he said.
Mobarak Hossain Khandaker, a schoolteacher at the Durakuti village of Lalmonirhat sadar upazila, said unscrupulous businessmen have been able to sell these adulterated food items because “there is no one to bring them to justice.”
“People purchase these goods seeing the fake BSTI seal. They don’t understand it. The administration should take this matter seriously and take legal measures against those involved in this business,” he said. Mantos Kuman, a field officer of BSTI in Rajshahi, cited lack of coordinated attempts to counter the illegal baked food business.
“We served notices to many illegal bakery owners for collecting the BSTI license in the last year, but no one bothered to do that. In order to conduct drives against those operating illegally, we need help from the local administration,” he said.
He, however, did not specify what was keeping them from seeking or using help from the local administration in this regard.
In this regard, Lalmonirhat District Commissioner Habibur Rahman said he would soon have mobile courts conduct drives to check if chemicals are being mixed in bakery products and other food items.
The anti-adulteration drive would cover the whole district, he added.
