White Rabbit candies banned from export
Shanghai has ordered the maker of the famed White Rabbit candy - Guan Sheng Yuan Food - to stop exports after four countries and regions, including Hong Kong, found the sweet contained the industrial chemical melamine.
But a spokeswoman for the municipal government said a larger domestic recall would depend on testing by a central government agency.
'We won't take any measures for domestic products until the test results from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine come out,' she said, referring to the national product quality watchdog.
Some Shanghai stores had started voluntarily withdrawing White Rabbit candy on Monday while several supermarkets in Haikou , the capital of Hainan , had also pulled it from the shelves, media reports said.
Several countries were taking no chances, as a slew of foreign governments announced bans on foods containing Chinese milk yesterday.
The European Commission has proposed a ban on any baby food products from China that contain traces of milk and called for tighter checks on other Chinese food products.
On Sunday, Singapore was the first to announce that its testing showed the candy to be tainted.
Hong Kong did so on Tuesday.
Australia and New Zealand urged shops to withdraw White Rabbit on Wednesday, and Britain's biggest retailer Tesco also said it had removed the candy from its shelves.
'This is a serious concern,' the deputy chief executive of the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, Sandra Daly, said. 'We cannot discount the likelihood of health risks resulting from the consumption of these sweets.'
The Shanghai government said the export halt took into account the potential threat to health.
'The Shanghai Exit-Entry Inspection and Quarantine Bureau has already asked Shanghai Guan Sheng Yuan Food Co to take effective measures for export products that might have hidden problems - stopping sales, removing from shelves and accepting returns and recall work,' the government said.
A spokeswoman for the candy maker, which is owned by Bright Food Group, claimed exports had already stopped and declined further comment. For the past three days the company has said it was awaiting test results for the candy.
State media made the first mention of the case in a report from Xinhua late on Tuesday, two days after Singapore had banned the candy.
Several countries have now announced bans on Chinese dairy- related products, including South Korea, France, India and Papua New Guinea. 'Chinese-made food products containing powdered milk will be banned until their safety is assured,' said the Korea Food and Drug Administration.
Powdered poison
The safe limit for melamine in food set by the European Commission (milligrams per kilogram): 30
The amount found in powdered milk made by Chinese dairy producer, Sanlu Group: 2,563
