Britannia says their bread's safe but stock tanks anyway

After a recent study conducted by CSE showed that bread and bakery products manufacturers use potassium bromate and potassium iodate in their bread products, Britannia has stated it doesn't use these chemicals as an ingredient in any of its bread recipes. 

"All Britannia bread products are in 100% compliance with the existing food safety regulations as stipulated by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)," Britannia Industries said in an e-mailed statement.

Products of Perfect Bread, Harvest Gold and Britannia were found to contain high average levels of potassium bromate and iodate, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) study showed on May 23. 

CSE had approached the 12 companies whose samples were positive for potassium bromate and iodate (according to PML tests) for their position on the use of these chemicals. Britannia was the only bread-sliced manufacturer to respond to CSE's queries. 

To confirm the presence of potassium bromate and iodate CSE had sent four samples of bread of four companies to reputed application lab Third Party Lab  in September 2015. 

"Britannia has studied the test reports released by CSE a couple of hours ago. The CSE report clearly states that the Third Party Lab report did not find potassium bromate or iodate in Britannia bread samples,” the company said. 

The shares of Britannia Industries slipped 3% to 12% intraday owing to health concerns issues as the CSE claimed bread contains cancer-causing chemicals. 

At 12:20 hours, the shares of Britannia Industries were trading down 1.86% or Rs 49.85 at Rs 2,631.10 per scrip on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).