At least get the facts right ...
Concern over Heinz ketchup in 2003
Jenny Gristock and Felicity Lawrence
Wednesday March 2, 2005
The Guardian
Heinz tomato ketchup was affected by the alert over the illegal cancer-causing dye Sudan 1 in December 2003, it emerged yesterday.
The Guardian has learned that the Food Standards Agency warned the European commission that the Heinz ketchup factory in Portugal feared its chilli supplies might have been contaminated.
Heinz used its laboratories in the UK to test its ketchup but was unable to find Sudan 1, which would have been highly diluted by the time it reached the finished products. But, unlike other alerts, this information was never posted on the FSA website. At the time, Heinz agreed to recall the affected batches. The Portuguese factory produced sachets of ketchup that were sent to Burger King in Britain and bottles for sale in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.
Heinz's director of communications, Michael Mullen, said: "In December 2003 Heinz was alerted to the possibility that there was Sudan 1 in a batch of spice ingredients supplied to our sauces and ketchup factory in Portugal.
"The supplier alerted us to the issue. We tested our own product but it came up negative." He added: "We were disappointed in the recent recall over Sudan 1 that Premier Foods supplied us with contaminated supplies." In the latest Sudan 1 alert several Heinz ready meals were recalled.
Bottled Heinz ketchup sold on shelves is made in a different factory in Elst in the Netherlands, which Heinz said was not affected. "It uses a different spice supplier," Mr Mullen said.
The FSA said the alert over Heinz tomato ketchup had not appeared on its website because Heinz had withdrawn the sauce that had gone to Burger King and no further action was required.
Asked whether the normal function of an alert - to warn local authority inspectors who have to check on recalls as well as the public - had been deemed unnecessary, a spokeswoman said: "Local authorities were contacted ... but it was not on the website."
The food industry thinks the latest contamination scandal is unlikely to end with the nearly 500 processed foods and meals named last week.
Phil Lynas, the managing director of the Grocery Company, which makes sauces for Nando's and was involved in a previous alert over Sudan 1, said: "There will be another Sudan 1 problem within the next six months." Speaking to the trade magazine the Grocer, Mr Lynas said he thought it would emerge that the dye "has regularly been contained in food for decades".
www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1428135,00.html
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