Thursday 2 October 2008

NZ Milk Products Tainted

South Korea's food safety agency said on Thursday it has banned the import of milk products from New Zealand which were used in baby formula after discovering traces of the harmful chemical melamine.

1 comment:

Guanyu said...

NZ milk products tainted

SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's food safety agency said on Thursday it has banned the import of milk products from New Zealand which were used in baby formula after discovering traces of the harmful chemical melamine.

Government officials said it was the first case of melamine-tainted food from a country other than China.

The Korea Food and Drug Administration said two of nine shipments of lactoferrin from New Zealand's Tatua Cooperative Dairy were found to contain 1.9 to 3.3 parts per million of melamine.

It said it had found no traces of melamine in 19 local baby formula brands which used lactoferrin as of Wednesday. Tests on more products were underway.

The agency had previously banned the import of all products containing Chinese powdered milk due to fears of melamine contamination.

No trace of the chemical has been found in 19 baby formula products tested, presumably because the additive makes up less than 0.1 per cent of the final product, the agency said.

No comment was immediately available from Tauta, which on Monday had suspended exports of lactoferrin because of the melamine find. The company was also checking where its product had been exported to and trying to trace the source of the melamine contamination.

'There's quite a lot of sensitivity around melamine even at low levels,' chief executive Paul McGilvary told the NZ Press Association at the time.

He said the New Zealand Food Safety Authority had found fewer than four parts per million of melamine in the Tatua product, and found there was no contamination of the company's milk supply.

South Korea has banned the imports of Chinese milk powder and rice cookies produced in China. It has also recalled tainted products from store shelves.

A growing list of Chinese milk and milk-related products have been taken off shelves around the world in recent weeks after they have been found to be contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, sickening tens of thousands and killing four children. -- REUTERS, AFP