The country is badly in need of a well-functioning food safety control system to improve public health and enhance trade of food commodities, experts said at a workshop on Tuesday.
They also put special emphasis on enhancement of food analysis capability by setting up laboratories equipped with both modern mechanisms and trained analysts.
The observations came at the terminal workshop on a FAO programme styled "Improving Food Safety in Bangladesh" organised by Food and Agriculture Organisation with the help of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at a city convention centre.
The programme is being implemented by FAO and Directorate General of Health, Bangladesh (DGoH) with the financial assistance from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The workshop was organised to highlight the outcomes of the project.
While speaking as the chief guest, MoHFW secretary (health division) Md Ashadul Islam said an efficient and well-functioning food safety control system is now badly needed both for ensuring public health and dynamic trade scenario of food products.
The country enacted the Food Safety Act 2013 and formed the Food Safety Authority aiming to establish an efficient and effective authority, he said.
Sridhar Dharmapuri, senior food safety and nutrition officer at FAO, presented a paper on the results of the programme.
The paper said the country's National Food Safety Laboratory (NFSL) was capacitated to analyse food for chemical and microbial contaminants following modern analytical methods and techniques.
NFSL is now the national reference laboratory of food analysis.
According to the paper, the Bangladesh Food Safety Laboratory Network (BFSLN) consisting 23 member laboratories was established with the support of the FAO programme.
The state-run Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) was supported with developed strong linkage with Codex Alimentarius.
The Codex Alimentarius or "Food Code" is a collection of standards, guidelines and codes of practice adopted by FAO and WHO to protect consumers' health and promote fair practices in food trade.
The FAO programme also developed food safety communication materials for school education that reached 4.0 million students, said the paper.
BFSA chairman Md Mahfuzul Haque said the FAO programme helps improve consumers' health in Bangladesh through reduced incidences of food-borne illness within the population.
Ambassador of the Netherlands to Bangladesh Harry Verweij was present as a guest of honour while FAO representative to Bangladesh Robert Douglas Simpson chaired the programme.
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