Taiwanese company Black Bridge Foods has pulled nearly 4,000 fried swordfish fiber items off shelves after Hong Kong’s Center for Food Safety warned against consuming products that tested positive for excessive levels of mercury.
The center issued the warning in a press release on Wednesday, in which it said a sample of Black Bridge Foods’ prepackaged fried swordfish fiber sold at a retail shop in the territory contained mercury at a level of 3.5 parts per million (ppm), seven times the maximum permissible level of 0.5ppm.
Taiwan currently does not regulate the level of total mercury in aquatic foods and only sets a 2ppm maximum allowable level of methyl mercury — the most toxic form of mercury — in products made from large marine fish, such as swordfish, shark and tuna.
Photo: Hung Hsin-po, Taipei Times
“To assuage consumer concerns, we have removed the company’s fried swordfish fiber products from our stores nationwide, and have also sent them to a third-party testing laboratory to be screened for methyl mercury and other forms of mercury. Test results are expected to be available within a week,” Black Bridge Foods spokesperson Lin Hsin-jung (林欣蓉) told reporters.
Lin also presented test results from November last year that showed no trace of methyl mercury in the products in question.
Lin said that consumers who had purchased the products could apply for a refund or exchange them.
Separately yesterday, the Tainan City Government Department of Health sent a group of inspectors to the Tainan-based food manufacturer’s factory to collect samples of its ingredients for testing.
“If the ingredients are found to contain methyl mercury at a level exceeding the legal limit, we will order the immediate destruction of the affected batches,” department Food and Drug Office Director Hsu Hui-mei (許惠美) said.
Taipei Veterans General Hospital toxicologist Deng Jou-fang (鄧昭芳) urged consumers to keep tabs on their consumption of swordfish fiber, as the presence of mercury is unavoidable in large marine species at the top of the food chain.
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