HK asks for help tracking melamine
Assistance of mainland sought
Hong Kong has sought assistance from the mainland's food safety agency to help track down the source of melamine after the industrial chemical was found in one brand of imported eggs.
Animal feed as well as chicken meat will also be tested for melamine in an urgent move prompted by deepening fears of widespread contamination in foods sold in the city.
On Saturday, the Centre for Food Safety found excessive melamine levels in a pack of half a dozen Select Fresh Brown Eggs (extra large) sold by the ParknShop supermarket chain. The eggs were from the supplier Hanwei Group in Dalian in the northeastern mainland province of Liaoning .
Another leading supermarket chain, Wellcome, said it had not sold eggs imported from Dalian.
Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok said: 'We have contacted the mainland's food safety agency and hope they can do more to reduce the risk at the source.'
Dr Chow said the melamine might have come from feed.
'Since some animal feed used on the mainland might have been polluted by melamine, our tests will target more on meat imported from the mainland,' he said. 'As we have found melamine in eggs, we shall also test chicken meat and we shall also look at offal, for example, chicken kidneys and pig kidneys.'
The Centre for Food Safety had said it would test samples of all eggs imported from the mainland this week. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department has been testing animal feed used on local farms and found no problems.
New Territories Chicken Breeders Association secretary Wong Yee-chuen said most local farmers did not use feed imported from China. 'Overseas feeds are more expensive, but it is quality that counts.'
Young Kam-yim, of the Hong Kong Egg Merchants Association, dismissed fears of wider contamination of eggs sold in the city, saying only some 10 per cent to 20 per cent of its eggs were imported from the mainland's northeastern provinces.
About 60 per cent of the eggs consumed in the city are imported from the mainland.
Legislator Wong Yung-kan, of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, suggested that all non-perishable foods imported from the mainland should be tested before they were allowed in markets.
'If the government only finds problems in foods after they have been eaten, it is too late,' he said.
A Hanwei Group spokesman said it was unaware of the news that its eggs were found to contain melamine, ATV News reported. The group is one of the biggest egg product firms in Asia. It also exports eggs to Japan, Russia and Europe.
A chicken farm under the group was at the centre of a bird flu scare two years ago when 30,000 chickens suddenly died.
China is caught in a food safety scandal over dairy products tainted with melamine, which has killed at least four babies on the mainland. Ten children in Hong Kong have also developed kidney stones after drinking the contaminated milk products.
