Fipronil scandal: Cocovite egg products withdrawn

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Certain batches of liquid egg products have been withdrawn in a further escalation of the fipronil contamination scandal.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has withdrawn 14 egg products sold through suppliers including Henryson Foods International, Foodspeed, Richard Wellock & Sons, SFD and Braehead Foods.

This includes Cocovite-branded liquid whole egg, yolk and white that have primarily been distributed to food manufacturers and catering outlets.

The FSA said the egg in these foods could have been supplied from affected farms in the Netherlands before the blocks on these farms were imposed. It added it would continue its investigations in tracking down implicated food products and ensure they were removed from sale.

Last week, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl were among retailers that withdrew products from sale due to the risk of fipronil contamination.

This followed the FSA announcing that 700,000 eggs contaminated with fipronil were found to have been distributed to the UK – not 21,000 as initially thought.

“Our advice remains clear – there’s no need to change how you buy or consume eggs. We are responding very quickly to any new information, to ensure that any products left that contain egg from the affected farms are withdrawn immediately,” said the FSA’s chairman Heather Hancock.

“We’re doing this because fipronil is not authorised for use in food-producing animals, not because we are concerned about any risk to health."

Ministry of Cake’s managing director Chris Ormrod told British Baker that the business does not get its liquid eggs from Cocovite to produce its cakes.

"Our suppliers are not Cocovite; we get our eggs from a UK egg manufacturer. I would think these products are not used by bakers," Ormrod said. "We are the biggest foodservice bakery in the UK and we don’t use any contaminated eggs here. I think the bigger problem potentially [lies with] suppliers to retailers."

British Lion Egg Processors have repeated calls for retailers, food manufacturers and caterers to use British Lion eggs in prepared foods.

A full list of the 14 additional products is as follows:

Henryson Foods International Ltd

• Lot 254, Cocovite Egg White – BBE 14/09/17

• Lot 255, Cocovite 1kg Carton Whole Eggs – BBE 15/09/17

• Lot 285, Cocovite 1kg Egg Yolk – BBE 06/10/17

Foodspeed

• Lot 291, Cocovite 2kg Liquid Egg Yolk cartons – use-by date 21/08/17

• Lot 283, Cocovite 10kg Liquid Whole Egg cartons – use-by date 04/10/17

• Lot 285, Cocovite 1kg Liquid Whole Egg cartons – use-by date 18/08/17

• Lot 292, Cocovite 1kg Liquid Egg Yolk cartons – use-by date 10/10/17

• Lot 275, Cocovite 1kg Liquid Egg White cartons – use-by date 29/09/17