By Chioma Obinna

LAGOS- National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Tuesday, threatened to commence a nationwide clampdown on Bread bakers, who distribute bread products without wraps and labels.

It also warned millers to comply with set standards of Good Manufacturing Practice, GMP, and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, HACCP guidelines and requirements of the agency or face the wrath of the law.

Director General of the Agency, Dr. Paul Orhii, who gave the warning at a Sensitization & Interactive Workshop for Stakeholders in the Bakery Industry in Lagos, said the act violates the standards of the agency as the naked loaves eventually get to the consumers already contaminated and in unhygienic conditions.

Orhii lamented that the agency had recently observed several lapses and violations, urged bakers to stop the use of dangerous ingredients, which are not on the list of substances generally regarded as safe.

While imploring stakeholders to conscientiously execute their duties both statutory and moral to ensure that bread and bread products are nutritious, wholesome and safe for the consumption of the Nigerian population, said “Millers should consistently, produce flour fortified with vitamins A & C, and other safe enhancers in approved quantities to prevent bakers from adding dangerous chemicals like potassium bromates as flour/bread improvers.

“NAFDAC’s commencement of registration of bread since 2007 is a mechanism put in place to regulate the use of un-permitted improvers in the production of bread, and to ensure that its production was carried out under good hygienic conditions,” he said.

He reiterated that the use of bromates had since been banned and removed from the list of bread improvers generally regarded as Safe ingredients by the FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives worldwide since 1992 as it was capable of causing cancer, kidney failure, deafness, redness and pain of the eyes and skin.