The Centre for Food Safety has found six of 432 Chinese New Year food samples it tested unsatifactory. Shops concerned have been warned and have stopped selling the products. It is tracing these foods' sources.

The tested samples included festive cakes, turnip puddings, sesame balls, crispy triangles, melon seeds, glutinous rice balls, vegetarian foods, preserved meat, dried seafood and poon choi. All the samples passed the microbiological tests.

For the chemical tests, a dried daylily flower sample and two sweetened winter-melon samples were found to contain the preservative sulphur dioxide exceeding the permitted level. Two glutinous rice balls with peanut filling samples were found to contain aflatoxins higher than the permitted level, and a dried shrimp sample found to contain boric acid, which is not permitted in food.

Sulphur dioxide is water soluble and most can be removed after thorough soaking, washing and cooking. The levels of aflatoxin and boric acid detected in the samples were low and should not pose immediate health effects upon normal consumption.

The centre will collect more Chinese New Year food samples for testing and results will be ready by the end of this month.

Targeted surveillance results

Two targeted food-surveillance projects - on colouring matters in chili and curry seasonings, and malachite green in aquatic products - are underway. The centre said among the 200 chili and curry sauce/powder samples, one chili sauce sample contained the banned colouring matter Rhodamine B.

For the 261 aquatic samples tested, apart from a frozen bream fillet sample announced earlier, three other samples - minced mud carp, frozen bream fillet and clam meat - were found to contain trace amounts of malachite green. At the levels detected, normal consumption should not pose any adverse health effects.

Warning letters have been issued to the shops concerned. Those shops have stopped selling the offending products, and the chili sauce containing the banned colouring matter was disposed of.