Syful Islam
Five milk powder brands, which were accused of melamine contamination, are now struggling to bring back consumers confidence and regain the market informed sources said.
The changed world economic situation also pushed those towards terrific situation as those are facing stiff price competition from the market competitors.
“Consumers are yet to get back confidence on our products despite test results from different internationally reputed labs and High Court verdict. Propaganda against us was well organised that we still could not defeat,” Managing Director of New Zealand Dairy Products Bangaldesh Ltd SA Mallik told The New Nation yesterday.
The five brands of milk powder which were later found out of melamine contamination are Australia’s Diploma and Red Cow, Denmark’s Dano Full Cream and New Zealand’s Nido Fortified Instant and Anlene.
Chinese made Yashli-1, Yashli- 2 and Sweet Baby were found highly contaminated with melamine toxic.
Stakeholders said the sale of these milk powder brands is now rising gradually but is still 30 per cent less compared to same period of previous year. They said people are still confused whether these brands still contain melamine or not. Some of the companies even could not recover 10 to 20 per cent previous market share.
“Some of the conscious consumers still in confusion whether the reports were bought from the internationally recognised labs in exchange of money,” said a local head of one of these brands.
“We are trying to make consumers clear that our products does not contain melamine. Our milk powders are totally safe for consumption. We are putting advertisement in the newspapers to change the consumers belief but these are too small to change it,” he said.
The laboratory test of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Dhaka first found that all the eight brands of milk contained melamine ranging between 40 milligram (mg) per kg to 450mg per kg. The milk powder brands were re-examined later following the demands of the marketing companies. Later, all labs, both local and foreign, found that these milk powder brands does not contain melamine toxic.
Mallik said price of milk powder in the world market reduced by almost 50 per cent but these five companies in the local market could not reduce price comparatively as they are still selling stocks bought 3 to 4 months back.
Most of the milk power brands have reduced price by Tk 50 per kg recently.
“We are still selling milk powder bought at US$5200 per ton. On the other hand, our competitors are selling milk powder bought at US$2000 per ton from the present world market. To stay competitive in the market we have no choice but to sell milk powder at US$3,000 per ton,” Mallik added.
He believes that the propaganda of melamine contamination in Bangladesh perspective was totally a ‘business game’. “When we became inactive due to the High Court ban on sell, our competitors done huge business,” he said.
Courtesy: nation.ittefaq.com
