Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder has urged restaurateurs to curb their greed to maintain food safety for everyone.
He made the comment at a restaurant grading ceremony on Sunday, arranged by the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) in Dhaka.
In grading the restaurants, the minister said: "Everyone needs to come forward to maintain food safety as it is not entirely the food ministry's responsibility."
"Those who are involved in the food business need to focus on the welfare of our countrymen instead of financial profit."
At the event, the minister graded a total of 13 restaurants, officially awarding them different coloured stickers.
The coloured stickers—green, blue, yellow, and orange—symbolize the grades A+, A, B, and C respectively. The green sticker stands for 'excellent' and is only awarded to restaurants that score 90 points or above, while the blue sticker represents 'good' and is awarded to restaurants that receive 80–89 points.
A yellow sticker represents an 'average' score of 60–79 points, while orange stands for a pending grade for restaurants which score 59 points or lower.
Sadhan Chandra continued that the reason for defining these stickers is to help customers determine the quality of the food and the restaurants.
"Restaurants with green and blue stickers are expected to serve the best quality food whereas orange and yellow sticker holders need to improve their standard to avoid license cancellation" he said.
Speaking at the event, Food Secretary Nazmanara Khanom said this is an international restaurant grading system.
"We have initially implemented the system for restaurants near Motijheel, Dilkhusha, and Paltan areas. Soon, the entire country's restaurants will be graded under this system," she added.
In April, 2018, this international restaurant grading system was launched by awarding a green sticker to Dhaka's Kosturi restaurant.
