Dutch Supermarkets Join Government Critics over Dioxin
Date: 08-Feb-06
Country: NETHERLANDS
On Monday, the Dutch farmers and feed makers unions expressed their anger with the contamination and urged authorities to do more to make sure companies, which provide raw materials to the feed industry, comply with standards.
Hundreds of pig farms, including a handful which also raise chickens, are still quarantined in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany as authorities probe levels of dioxin in feed and meat after the toxins were found in Belgian pork fat ingredients.
It is the latest contamination problem to hit Europe after a similar case in 2004, when dioxin, a class of chemicals widely used in industrial processes, was found in Dutch potato feed.
"Supermarkets want the government to put more efforts and money to tighten control of dangerous ingredients, such as dioxin, being mixed with food," the association of Dutch supermarkets CBL said in a letter to be sent to the agriculture ministry.
"Supermarkets will also insist that companies which break the safety rules do not just go along with a fine of some ten thousand euros... The managers of such companies should be held personally responsible," it said. The farm ministry and the food safety authority VWA have so far declined comment. VWA says on its website that safety measures taken by the EU and the government have increasingly reduced the number of dioxin incidents in the past several years.
VWA has said it was not going to recall meat from shops as levels of dioxin appeared to be low and did not pose a serious risk to public health, even though conclusive meat test results are not due until later this week.
South Korea banned pork meat from Belgium and the Netherlands, one of the world's top meat exporters, some two weeks ago when news about the dioxin contamination first broke.
Contaminated feed has triggered several west European food scares such as the discovery of dioxin in Dutch potato animal feed in 2004, an illegal hormone in Dutch pigs in 2002 and a 1999 Belgian scandal of dioxin in chickens.
Authorities have said that the dioxin in the latest incident got into Belgian pork fat ingredients used to make animal feed in October. It was discovered and announced in late January.
Food safety officials have said the contamination came from a gelatine-making process at Belgian firm PB Gelatins. Shares in Belgian chemical firm Tessenderlo, which owns PB Gelatins, fell last week on the dioxin news.
The EU said on Friday it planned to tighten its rules on toxic chemicals like dioxins in food and animal feed, hoping to avoid a repeat of the latest scare in the three EU countries.
