More New Zealand milk products sold to China have been banned after elevated levels of nitrates were found, raising further concerns over quality and testing in the world’s largest dairy exporter in the wake of a contamination scare earlier this month.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) yesterday said it had revoked export certificates for four China-bound consignments of lactoferrin manufactured by Westland Milk Products after higher-than-acceptable nitrate levels were found by tests in China.
Two of the four consignments had been shipped to China, but had not reached consumers, the ministry said.
“Any food safety risk to Chinese consumers is negligible because the quantities of lactoferrin used in consumer products was very small, meaning the nitrate levels in those products would easily be within acceptable levels,” Scott Gallacher, the acting director-general of the ministry, said in a statement.
The announcement comes just weeks after Westland’s much bigger competitor, Fonterra, said some of its dairy ingredients were contaminated with a botulism-causing bacteria. This prompted a recall of infant formula products, sports drinks and other products in China, New Zealand and other Asia-Pacific nations.
“All of the product has been located; none of it has entered the retail food chain,” Westland chief executive Rod Quin said. “We’re well aware of the wider context of the issue and related concerns, so we’ve acted to make sure the product doesn’t go any further.”
China’s top quality watchdog said it had halted all imports of the product from Westland and asked other New Zealand dairy companies exporting lactoferrin to provide nitrate test reports.
The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China urged the New Zealand government to thoroughly scrutinize its dairy companies as well as their products to ensure the safety of exports to China, New Zealand’s top dairy market.
The four consignments were derived from two affected batches of lactoferrin, a naturally occurring protein found in milk, manufactured by Westland at its Hokitika factory on the country’s South Island.
Initial investigations pointed to contamination by cleaning products that contain nitrates that were not property flushed from the plant, Quin said.
Privately owned Westland makes about 120,000 tonnes of dairy product each year, exporting the majority. Its production pales in comparison with that of Fonterra, which exports 2.5 million tonnes of product.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group agricultural economist Con Williams said that the 390kg of affected Westland product was much smaller than the 38 tonnes of contaminated product produced by Fonterra. As a result, he expected it would have limited impact on global demand for New Zealand dairy products.
“The timing isn’t ideal. There’s heightened concern around food safety issues at the moment especially in the dairy sector in light of the Fonterra issue two weeks ago,” Williams said.
“But in terms of the actual issues, it doesn’t seem to be substantial... It looks like only a very small amount of product was affected and it doesn’t seem to be a food safety issue,” he said.
The two batches of lactoferrin showed nitrate levels of 610 and 2,198 parts per million respectively, above the New Zealand maximum limit of 150 parts per million.
Westland exported one batch directly to a Chinese distributor, which sold the product on as an ingredient for other dairy products. The second batch was supplied to New Zealand’s Tatua Co-operative Dairy Co and also exported to China.
“MPI, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the companies concerned are working closely with the Chinese authorities on this issue,” Gallacher said.
There was no affected lactoferrin used in products in New Zealand or exported elsewhere.
New Zealand relies on diary exports for about a quarter of its NZ$46 billion (US$37 billion) in annual export earnings.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
RSS