Belgian feed in PCB scare
Belgian feed in PCB scare
BELGIUM has been hit by another food scare, after the discovery of cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in pig and poultry feed from a mill near the border with France.
Food safety agency, AFSCA, announced on Jan 29 that batches of the feed, containing up to eight times the normal limit, had been sent to eight pig farms on Jan 4, 2002.
Four of these had subsequently sold animals into the human food chain and tracking this pigmeat was in progress.
But a statement from AFSCA insisted that "given the content found in the feed and the short period of exposure, the likely concentrations in the fat of the pigs should not be alarming".
The PCBs, which are believed to have arrived at the compounder from a raw material supplier, were first detected in two samples of chicken feed on Jan 18. Some 19 poultry farms thought to have received the material were quarantined, though this has since been reduced to five.
Of these, three had already slaughtered birds which had consumed the feed. About 13,500 poultry pieces are believed to have entered the food chain, though none have gone for export.
It is the first major food scare to hit Belgium since the 1999 dioxin crisis, which seriously damaged meat and dairy product consumption. *