A food safety survey found Vita brand milk contained coliform bacteria, indicating a hygiene problem during production.
The Centre for Food Safety yesterday released a report on food samples collected in March and April, which showed three bottles of Vitasoy's Vita gold-top pasteurised milk tested positive for coliform, which is prohibited by food standards.
All three bottles were from a shipment of 3,855 bottles on the way from Vitasoy's mainland factory to Hong Kong. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department confiscated and destroyed more than 1,000 unsold bottles in March, but took no action on an estimated 2,000 from the same batch that consumers had already purchased. The Centre for Food Safety received no complaints about the milk.
Miranda Lee Siu-yuen stressed that coliform posed no health threat to people but that its presence did indicate the level of hygiene.
'There are bacteria that are harmful, and bacteria that are not. This merely indicates the production process is not satisfactory,' she said.
Vitasoy 'has conducted a thorough investigation into this incident and has determined that this is an isolated incident', a company spokeswoman said. It has not received any complaints regarding the product.
The centre also said that a large green pepper from ParknShop was found to contain 2 parts per million of methamidophos, a pesticide, but claimed it posed a low risk to health.