Six imported Godiva ice cream products must be removed immediately from all store shelves, as they have been found to contain a banned pesticide, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement on Friday.
The FDA said that the recall order was based on a similar decision on Thursday by the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety, which said it had been notified by an EU agency that ethylene oxide had been found in Godiva ice cream products shipped from France.
The statement said that 70.6 tonnes of Godiva ice cream products have been seized and 19.2 tonnes have been recalled.
Over the past year, 89.8 tonnes of Godiva ice cream products have been imported to Taiwan, the FDA said.
Later on Friday, the FDA was notified by the EU Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed that the stabilizers in six Godiva ice cream products were contaminated with the banned pesticide, the agency said.
The FDA said it has submitted a request to the ice cream maker to stop sales of the six products and provide Taiwan with a list of their contents.
The six contaminated products are Godiva’s 100ml package of chocolate cheese, milk chocolate frozen confection with dark chocolate, Belgian dark chocolate, vanilla flavored cocoa-infused ice cream, caramel coffee frozen confection with dark chocolate chips and strawberry with dark chocolate chips, it said.
Chang Gung Hospital Clinical Poison Center director Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海) on Friday told local media that ethylene oxide is a widely used industrial product, adding that it was not clear how the ice cream products were contaminated.
Exposure to ethylene oxide might increase the risk of cancer and cause central nervous or peripheral neuropathy, he said.
Even though the concentration of ethylene oxide in the products was not yet clear, they should be recalled as a preventative measure, he said.
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