Updated at 6.23pm: Hong Kong's food safety authority on Wednesday confirmed traces of banned dye Sudan IV were found in a duck egg and a chicken egg imported from the mainland. Centre for Food Safety acting director Philip Ho Yuk-yin said the tainted duck egg was one of 11 samples taken from the Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium for tests on the banned red dye. The department store last month sold about 1,000 eggs supplied by the mainland's Hubei Shendan Healthy Food Company - which was found to have used the chemical which can potentially cause cancer - to feed their ducks to redden their egg yolks. Initial test results also revealed traces of Sudan IV in a sample of mainland chicken eggs sold in a Cheng Sha Wan market. These eggs were imports from Hunan province, Dr Ho said. He said further tests would be conducted to determine how much Sudan IV the tainted eggs contained. Dr Ho said mainland authorities had been told of the test results and agreed with Hong Kong's request that exports of chicken eggs from Hunan be stopped. Wednesday's results were in contrast with earlier assurances by health officials that contaminated eggs had not been supplied to Hong Kong. Earlier on Wednesday, the Yue Hwa department store said it had removed about 1,250 duck eggs from the same batch as the tainted sample from its shelves. It was also recalling those which have been sold. 'From now on, we will be more careful when dealing with egg imports. We will require egg suppliers to produce test reports for Sudan IV.' spokesman Choi Fu-kuen said. The detection of the banned dye in eggs stirred the latest in a run of food scares in Hong Kong, which imports much of its food from the mainland. According to state media, tainted eggs supplied by Hubei Shendan have been found in Beijing and in stores in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.
