(Picture: Nestlé Bangladesh PLC Facebook)
Arrest warrants have been issued for the Nestlé board of directors after rotten KitKats were sold in Bangladesh.
Food inspectors say the beloved chocolate-covered wafers found on shelves were too acidic and and too few milk solids, suggesting they were rotten, posing a risk to public health.
Nursrat Sahara Bithi, a special metropolitan magistrate at a food safety court in Dhaka, has asked police to arrest several senior executives from the confectionery company.
These include the managing director of Nestlé Bangladesh, Deepal Abeywickrema, and the company’s public policy manager, Riasad Zaman.
Laboratory tests confirmed that the KitKat chocolates imported and sold in Bangladesh failed to meet the legally required quality standards.
(Picture: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Kamrul Hasan, Dhaka South City Corporation’s safe food inspector, filed the court case against Nestlé Bangladesh, claiming they have been selling ‘substandard products, putting public health at risk.’
The company has challenged the basis of this criminal case, saying authorities acted without reviewing documents or consulting it before seeking arrest warrants for the two senior officials.
Food safety officials collected samples from several retailers on November 10, all of which failed to meet required standards, Mr Hasan said.
The Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution allows acidity of up to 1%, but the wafer samples contained 2.32%.
Milk solids have an approved range of 12 to 14%, but the chocolate used in the KitKat coating contained 9.31%.
Debabrata Roy Chowdhury, the company secretary at Nestlé Bangladesh, told local media that the BSTI had no standard developed for products like KitKat, only for chocolate biscuits.
Nestlé Bangladesh PLC started its commercial operations in 1994 with its first factory in Sreepur.
On their website, the company claims that over the past two decades, they have ‘offered diverse products and services for all stages of life, helping people take better care of themselves and their families.
Nestlé Bangladesh told Metro: ‘Food safety and product quality is the highest priority for Nestlé worldwide.
‘Products imported into Bangladesh by Nestlé are quality tested against the relevant local standards before they can be sold.
‘We are seeking to understand the specific circumstances behind these allegations and have immediately commissioned independent testing of these products.
‘The results gives us confidence that these products meet our high standards and are safe to consume.’
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