China investigates tainted eggs in new food scare

Three more Chinese brands of eggs containing melamine have been identified as a local authority admitted that officials knew about the contamination for a month before it was publicly disclosed.

Authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou recalled a brand produced by a company based in the northern province of Shanxi. In Hong Kong, the government said tests on two other brands found excessive amounts of melamine.

No-one has been made ill and it was not immediately clear how many eggs have been recalled.

The widening problem has exposed the inability of Chinese authorities to keep the food production process clean of toxins despite official vows to raise food safety standards.

In Beijing, egg sales dropped by at least 10% on Tuesday at the Xinfadi Wholesale Market, a major distribution centre in the capital, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

“Everyone is scared of eating eggs right now. Who knows what other type of food is affected?” said Wen Hu, a 28-year-old software engineer living in the north-eastern port city of Dalian, where China’s leading egg processor is based.

“All of my co-workers, friends and family, not just those living in Dalian, have stopped eating eggs. It’s one of those things that it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Last week, Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group’s eggs were pulled from some Chinese stores after Hong Kong food safety regulators found excessive levels of melamine. Its website said that, besides the domestic and Hong Kong markets, its egg products were exported to Japan and countries in south-east Asia.

The Dalian government said it was first alerted to the problem of melamine-tainted eggs on September 27 – but it did not explain the delay in reporting the problem.

Hong Kong authorities first revealed the test results over the weekend and the Dalian government said it was investigating how eggs came to be contaminated.

A Chinese agriculture official has said the melamine was probably added to the feed given to the chickens that laid the contaminated eggs. The chemical is not an animal feed additive and is banned from being mixed in.

Han Wei, director of the company, was quoted by Xinhua as saying melamine was found in some stored feed supplied by a feed plant in late September and that his company was preparing to sue the supplier. No other details were given and telephones at Hanwei were not answered.

China’s fresh eggs are mainly exported to the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau, while egg products are also sold to Japan and the US, according to a February egg market report on the Agriculture Ministry’s website, the latest available data.

The reputation of Chinese products has in the past year come under fire after high levels of chemicals and additives were found in goods ranging from toothpaste to milk powder, which was at the heart of last month’s dairy crisis also centred around melamine.

Four babies died and tens of thousands were ill in the scandal authorities said was triggered by dairy suppliers who added melamine to watered-down milk to dupe quality control tests and make the product appear rich in protein. Chinese authorities and a leading dairy producer also delayed reporting the problem for months.

Melamine, used plastics, paint and adhesives, can lead to kidney stones and possibly life-threatening kidney failure. Infants are particularly susceptible.