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Alex Lo

A Hong Kong-made oyster sauce sold widely in the SAR has been cleared from supermarket shelves in Britain after it was found to contain high levels of a cancer-causing contaminant.

 But Amoy Oyster Sauce will still be sold in Hong Kong, where there are no limits on the chemical ingredient involved.

 Manufacturers Amoy Food said yesterday it would drop the ingredient by the end of the year, gradually phasing it out of the product worldwide.

 It has also stopped supplying Amoy Oyster Sauce to the European Union (EU) while the modification is made, although the sauce will not be withdrawn from sale outside Britain.

 The move came after British health authorities found the sauce to contain the cancer-causing chemical 3-MCPD in a concentration three times above the EU's recommended maximum of 10 parts per billion.

 The sauce uses a food flavouring called hydrolysed vegetable protein (HVP), which produces 3-MCPD by chemical reaction.

 An Amoy spokeswoman said HVP would be dropped from production of the Oyster Sauce within two weeks and from other products by the end of this year.

 She claimed that only the Oyster Sauce line exceeded safety limits while other sauces were below danger levels.

 She declined to list the sauces, their sales figures and 3-MCPD levels but a search in a supermarket found that at least one other popular line - the Amoy Oyster Supreme Sauce with Mushroom - uses HVP.

 'There is no health danger to the public,' the Amoy spokeswoman said.

 'We don't believe it's necessary to withdraw the products because there is no law on the limits in Hong Kong and no scientific study has shown a precise danger level for human exposure.'  Amoy is the second most popular sauce sold in Hong Kong after Lee Kum Kee, which also uses HVP in some products, including Premium Soy Sauce, Seasoned Soy Sauce for seafood and chicken marinade. Their 3-MCPD levels were not known and Lee Kum Kee did not return calls last night.

 Hong Kong's Health Department said yesterday there was no legal limit on HVP because it was not considered a health hazard.

 'There is no evidence that 3-MCPD is carcinogenic in humans,' a department spokesman said. 'The safety figure [in Europe] is only advisory.'  But the British Government's Joint Food and Standards Safety Group said the high levels, tested after warnings from experts in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, were of serious concern.

 'As it has been shown to cause cancer in rats when fed at high doses over prolonged periods, it is clearly sensible to take all reasonable steps to keep it out of the food supply,' it said.

 The British study also found unsafe levels of the chemical in sauces made by British-based supermarket chain Sainsbury's and Wing Yip.



Oyster sauce banned amid cancer fears