There is a KitKat scandal brewing in Bangladesh | News World

Deepal Abeywickrema is considered one of the senior Nestlé executives who has had arrest warrants issued
(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 corporate’s public policy manager, Riasad Zaman.

Laboratory tests confirmed that the KitKat chocolates imported and sold in Bangladesh failed to fulfill the legally required quality standards.

KitKat chocolate covered wafer bars at Nestle SA In York, UK, on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. The Swiss food giant has enrolled 11,000 farming households in top grower Ivory Coast in a program that pays a bonus of up to 500 ($535) a year to families which fulfill obligations such as putting their children in school and adopting high-quality pruning. Photographer: Dominic Lipinski/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nestlé senior executives are usually not taking a break as arrest warrants have been issued
(Picture: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Kamrul Hasan, Dhaka South City Corporation’s protected food inspector, filed the court case against Nestlé Bangladesh, claiming they’ve been selling ‘substandard products, putting public health in danger.’

The corporate has challenged the premise of this criminal case, saying authorities acted without reviewing documents or consulting it before in search of arrest warrants for the 2 senior officials.

Food safety officials collected samples from several retailers on November 10, all of which did not meet required standards, Mr Hasan said.

The Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution allows acidity of as much as 1%, however the wafer samples contained 2.32%.

Milk solids have an approved range of 12 to 14%, however the chocolate utilized in the KitKat coating contained 9.31%.

Debabrata Roy Chowdhury, the corporate secretary at Nestlé Bangladesh, told local media that the BSTI had no standard developed for products like KitKat, just for chocolate biscuits.

Italy - July 13, 2023: Packs of KitKat Nestle, wafer bars with chocolate, in branded cardboard boxes for sale on the shelf of an Italian discount store market; Shutterstock ID 2331614917; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -
Biscuit or chocolate bar? Nestlé Bangladesh has said the BSTI had no standard developed for KitKats (Picture: Shutterstock / Framarzo)

Nestlé Bangladesh PLC began its industrial operations in 1994 with its first factory in Sreepur.

On their website, the corporate claims that over the past 20 years, they’ve ‘offered diverse services for all stages of life, helping people take higher care of themselves and their families.

Nestlé Bangladesh told Metro: ‘Food safety and product quality is the best priority for Nestlé worldwide.

‘Products imported into Bangladesh by Nestlé are quality tested against the relevant local standards before they may be sold. 

‘We’re in search of to grasp the precise circumstances behind these allegations and have immediately commissioned independent testing of those products.

‘The outcomes gives us confidence that these products meet our high standards and are protected to devour.’

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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