FOUR HUNDRED bottles of Worcestershire Sauce have been impounded by the authorities in the latest scare over the illegal food dye, Sudan I.
Acting head of the Health Services, George Georgallas, said the government received information on the contaminated batch through the EU’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed on Saturday and “swooped on the importer’s warehouse in Limassol the following day”.
Five products containing the dye were found in Cyprus last week, with Georgallas adding that no new products have been discovered since.
These products have been taken from supermarkets by government health inspectors and “have been destroyed”.
The alert over Sudan 1 in processed foods will spread this week after it became clear that at least 20 of the nearly 200 British companies that had been sent contaminated products had passed them on to other countries in the EU.
The results of random tests carried out by local authorities across Britain over the past few months have yet to be collated but are also due to be reported on in the next two weeks.
Trading standards sources said the report would reveal further cases of the adulterant in food.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) in Britain provided approximately US$1.5 million of additional funds last year to local authorities for random sampling of imported foods for contaminants, including Sudan 1, because of concerns about goods coming into the UK.
But it was only when a small laboratory in Italy detected Sudan 1 in a product from Premier Foods that the current alert, which has seen nearly 500 products recalled in the UK, was triggered.
Irritation with the UK’s handling of the food scare grew among EU partners last week. The commission criticised the FSA for telling other member states of new information about which products were affected through its website, rather than through the system of rapid alert that has been set up to handle food safety crises.
An emergency meeting of Europe’s Expert Contaminants Working Group in Ireland last Friday was told that other EU countries were still trying to work out how much of their food supply was affected.
The chairman of the FSA, Sir John Krebs, on Sunday defended the agency from criticism, saying it was the responsibility of the food industry to check that its products did not include illegal ingredients.
“What this has shown me is that there is a question about our trust in the food industry. What I have taken away from this is the huge complexity of the food chain, the fact that one food product was in so many products from microwave meals to sandwiches,” he said.
“It also raises questions about processed food. We have said there are hidden salts in processed food, but people don’t know what goes into the food they eat and this is another illustration,” he said.
