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No Dioxin in German Foods Bound for Hong Kong

By Dan Flynn and Suzanna Schreck

For the second time in less than a week, multiple foods imported from German have passed dioxin tests by Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety, known for its ability to sniff out chemicals in edibles.
Getting its food products back into Hong Kong is a sign the German dioxin scandal may be on the wane.  Last Saturday, the Center for Food Safety took samples from five shipments of food products that were bound for Hong Kong consumers.  All passed.
"In view of the recent detection of dioxin in some eggs, poultry, and pork produced in Germany, samples were collected in the local market (Hong Kong) in the past few days and sent to the Government Laboratory for dioxin testing," the CFS spokesman said.
The spokesman reiterated that according to information from the European Commission's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, with the exception of two consignments of eggs exported to the United Kingdom via the Netherlands, no products suspected to be contaminated with dioxin were exported to other countries. 
The German authorities had suspended food exports from the affected farms and processing plants. ??"We will continue liaison with the German authorities and the European Commission on the latest developments, and monitor the situation closely," the CFS spokesman added.
Wednesday the CFS also announced that it had tested 11 more samples of imported German food products and each one passed the dioxin test.  This means that to date all 16 German foods have passed Hong Kong's dioxin monitors.
"In view of the recent detection in Germany of dioxin in some eggs, poultry and pork produced in the country, samples of imported German food products have been collected from the market at the import level and sent to the Government Laboratory for dioxin testing," the CFS spokesman said.
The second batch of comprised four samples of eggs, three samples of poultry products, two samples of pork and two samples of pork products. Hong Kong's measures to hold and examine imported German eggs, poultry as well as pork and pork products will remain in place.
Germany has been dealing with the dioxin scandal since a now defunct company mixed dioxin-tainted industrial oil with oil intended for animal feed.  Sales were temporarily shutdown on 5,000 egg, pork, and poultry farm by German officials.

Full post as published by Food Safety News on January 20, 2011 (boomark / email).