State bans sale of contaminated local biscuit brand

MANILA, Philippines - The sale of a local biscuit brand found to contain melamine in Hong Kong has been banned in the country. The Department of Health and the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) have ordered the pullout from store shelves of Sunflower Crackers Blueberry Cream Sandwich, which is manufactured locally by Croley Foods Manufacturing Corp. The biscuit was found to contain melamine by a testing center in Hong Kong on Sunday. "[BFAD] has already collected samples of the biscuit so we can verify the results for ourselves," BFAD Director Leticia Barbara B. Gutierrez told BusinessWorld. She added for public safety reasons, a ban has been issued even without verification of the findings in Hong Kong. BFAD said the ban only covers one product of Croley and that the company may sell its other products. The agency, however, has also collected samples of the company’s other products for testing. "We are not going to ban [Croley] from selling their products because it was only the Sunflower Crackers Blueberry Cream that was found with melamine," said Ms. Gutierrez. Hong Kong’s Center for Food Safety (CFS) on Sunday said that it found melamine in the Sunflower brand biscuits that were imported from the Philippines. The CFS said that it found 3.2 parts per million of melamine in the biscuit. In earlier reports, Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said that a product found with more than 1.5 parts per million of melamine is dangerous. Ms. Gutierrez said that the company has already voluntarily recalled all its products. The country has so far banned six products found with the chemical melamine. These are Yili Fresh Milk, Mengniu milk, JollyCow Slender Milk and three variants of Lotte Koala biscuits. These are all made in China. Melamine is a raw material used for making plastics. The melamine scandal has so far affected more than 50,000 infants in China, including the death of four babies. — Emilia Narni J. David, BusinessWorld