Substandard quality: BSTI cancels licences of 7 products

The Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) has cancelled licences for six food items and one skin care product marketed by nine companies because of their substandard quality.

The food items represent the categories, namely salt, soybean oil, turmeric powder, vermicelli, ghee, and chanachur (a salty and spicy crisp snack) as well as skin cream, according to a corrected press release of the state-run agency published today.

“Consumers are requested to refrain from buying the products,” BSTI said.

“Sales and distribution of the products will be prohibited until the companies take fresh licences for these products, ” said Md Reazul Haque, deputy director for certification marks at the BSTI.

Earlier, the BSTI had issued a press release, where it said it had revoked the licences of seven products of 13 firms.

In the corrected statement, it dropped four names, saying the companies were included in the first press release mistakenly and they possess the required licences.

“We will issue licences after the nine companies address the problems and improve the quality,” Haque said.

The BSTI scrapped the licences after testing the products in its lab. The samples were collected from the market, the press release said.

Haque said the BSTI cancelled the certification marks licences for the products in the ‘last two to three months.’

But it made the information public today as it thought that it would be good to do so if the number of licences revoked was higher, he said, adding that the agency is certain that these products are now out of the market.

He said the BSTI would not wait for the number to increase next time. “If we find two cases, we will issue notices for the two.”