A Dhaka court specialising in food adulteration offences has imposed fines on two companies – Agora Limited and Neofarmers – for marketing butter that was found to be made from non-dairy ingredients.
Judge Kaisunnahar Surma on Monday fined Agora Limited, one of the country’s leading retail chains, Tk 4 lakh for selling the counterfeit butter.
Neofarmers, the producer of the item branded as “Gawa Ghee”, was ordered to pay Tk 8 lakh. The product was sold in jars labelled “Naturally Grown, Honestly Packed”.
The case identified two individuals as responsible: Muallem A Chowdhury from Agora and Tamzid Siddiq Spondon from Neofarmers – a company that had promoted itself as a champion of pure and chemical-free food products.
“It’s shocking that something being marketed as butter contained no milk at all,” said Nargis Akter, a food inspector with Dhaka North City Corporation, who filed the case on August 18.
According to case documents, a sample of the product was collected from Agora’s Benaroshi Polli outlet in Mirpur on July 27. Three days later, a Dhaka South City Corporation food analyst confirmed it as substandard after testing it against six key parameters—of which it failed four.
One crucial parameter requires butter to contain 99.7 percent milk fat. The tested sample contained none. The saponification value—measuring fat composition—stood at 198, below the required 218. The iodine level was found to be 92.07, nearly triple the permitted maximum of 35, while the peroxide value was 3.12 milligrams of oxygen per kilogram, almost four times the allowable limit of 0.8.
Food scientists explained that low saponification values suggest the use of vegetable fats, which contain longer carbon chains than milk fats. Excessive iodine indicates the use of non-dairy oils or chemicals to soften the butter. Meanwhile, high peroxide levels point to rancidity and poor quality, raising health concerns such as heart disease and arterial blockages.
Inspector Nargis further alleged that Agora attempted to conceal the supplier’s identity by failing to disclose Neofarmers’ details when officially requested.
Agora Limited operates as a joint venture between Swedish investment firm Brummer & Partners and Bangladesh’s Rahimafrooz Group.
