Substandard confections take toll on public health

Staff Reporter :
Bakery food items being made in an unhygienic environment are causing serious health risk across the country.

Those unsafe and substandard food items, manufactured by hundreds of illegal bakeries, are available everywhere in the country. Even, some popular items are highly contaminated.

While thousands of food products can literally be produced and imported without any certification, mandatory standards often fail to cover their targeted safety level.

According to the Bangladesh Auto Biscuit and Bread Manufacturers’ Association (BABBMA), there are approximately 5,000 semi-automated or manual small bakeries and 60 large factories in Bangladesh.

The market size of branded biscuits in the country was valued at more than USD 500 million in 2023 with an annual growth of about 15 percent,BABBMA informed.

It is alleged that a section of bakery owners are using toxic chemicals for baking cakes, pastry cakes, biscuits and different types of bread to reduce their production cost.

The bakers use dyes, expired food colors, artificial flavors and custard paste in preparing biscuits, cakes, pastry cakes and different other bakery items, said the sources.

However, some study reports find that quality of the bakery has not improved despite an increase in sales.

Even in some bakeries an unhygienic and dirty environment is prevalent. Various bakery products including biscuits, chanachur, bread, butterbun, sweets, are being made with low quality materials.

Flour and flour godown is where the prepared food is kept inside the factory, sources said. The pans used to process flour for making these food products are also dirty in a significant number of bakeries in the country.

The workers are walking barefoot over the under processing ingredients during production in those bakeries.

The curds that are processed into flour are also impure and dirty. Flies flutter in pots placed in creams made with Dalda, they informed.

Public health experts told The New Nation that food adulteration has become a common phenomenon in the country, adding that the backers use ammonium bicarbonate, sodium cyclamate, urea fertiliser and toxic coloring agents in preparing bakery food items in order to reduce their production cost.

Food- borne disease caused by E-colai bacteria contained in the bakery products.

They also informed that nowadays the backers tend to use some toxic chemicals like artificial sweetener, formaldehyde, preservatives, and artificial colors in the production of food items, which can cause diarrhoea, stomach pain, fever and vomiting.

A study, published in 2021 in an international science journal Food Science and Nutrition, said that most of the bread marketed across Bangladesh contain another hazardous additive, potassium bromate.

The poor monitoring and inspection had turned the situation worse, rendering even ‘mandatory products’ unfit for consumption, experts added.

Additionally, Experts have also called for control of trans- fats in food by bringing it under a legal framework and warned that, otherwise, its effects will become a pandemic.

‘Bangladesh is perhaps the only place in the world where frozen food business goes unregulated,’ said Bellal Hossain, who teaches nutrition and food engineering at Daffodil International University in the capital.

Noted nutritionist Dr Khurshid Jahan said that a section of bakers use various expired food colours, custard paste and dyes colour for making cakes, pastry cakes and biscuits to reduce their production cost, which ultimately poses serious health risks for the consumers.

“People are often unknowingly consuming contaminated bakery items and getting sick,” she added. She also called upon the government to strengthen monitoring of the bakery and pastry shops to prevent the use of harmful chemicals in food products.