http://capitalpress.com/main.asp?SectionID=94&SubSectionID=801&ArticleID=44898
Cadbury pulls melamine-laced chocolate from China
By Min
Lee, Capital Press 9/29/08
HONG KONG - British candy maker Cadbury said Monday it is
recalling 11 types of Chinese-made chocolates found to contain
melamine, as police in northern China raided a network accused
of adding the banned chemical to milk.
A Cadbury spokesman said it was too early to say how much of
the chemical was in the chocolates made at its Beijing plant.
"It's too early to say where the source was or the extent of
it," said the spokesman, who declined to be identified because
of company policy.
The company said its dairy suppliers were cleared by
government testing.
Meanwhile, police in Hebei province arrested 22 people and
seized more than 480 pounds of the industrial chemical in the
raids, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The report said the melamine was produced in illicit plants
and sold to breeding farms and purchasing stations.
Xinhua said 19 of the 22 detainees were managers of pastures,
breeding farms and purchasing stations. It did not say when
the raids took place.
The scandal broke this month when authorities said infant
formula produced by Sanlu was causing kidney stones in babies
and young children. Four infants have died and some 54,000
have become ill after drinking the contaminated baby formula.
Subsequent tests revealed melamine contamination in products
ranging from yogurt to candy to pastries.
Authorities believe suppliers added melamine, which is rich in
nitrogen, to watered-down milk to deceive quality tests for
protein.
Cadbury said the 11 recalled chocolate products were
distributed in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.
U.S. companies Kraft Foods Inc. and Mars Inc. said they would
adhere to a recall order of Chinese-made Oreos, M&Ms and
Snickers in Indonesia, but said they wanted to conduct their
own tests with outside experts.
So far only a local agency has checked the products for
melamine, but the levels found were considered very high.
"We have asked our trade partners and retailers to suspend the
sales of our products in accordance to the agency's order,"
Mars Indonesia spokesman Bondan Ardi said.
Hong Kong supermarket chain PARKnSHOP also pulled its
Chinese-made Oreo, M&M and Snickers products as a precaution,
spokeswoman Pinky Chan said.
Countries around the world have removed items containing
Chinese milk ingredients from store shelves or banned them
outright.
Authorities in China had previously arrested at least 18
people and detained more than two dozen suspects in connection
with the scandal. |
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