Foods contaminated with aflatoxins recalled

The affected products are:

Quaker Caribbean Chicken Seasons – sold in single 28g packs and multipacks of four 25g packs - with best before date: 02-09-06 (batch no. GBB 602 131)

Sainsbury's 18 Chocolate & Toffee Crispie Bites – 216g pack with best before dates: 18-08-06 and 27-08-06

Smiths Bacon Fries – sold on display cards with 24 packs (25g per pack) with best before dates:
09-09-06 (batch no. GBP4XX 111 or 112)
16-09-06 (batch no. GBP4XX 113 to 119 inclusive)
23-09-06 (batch no. GBP4XX 120 to 124 inclusive)

Only these specific batches with these best before dates are affected. Quaker, Sainsbury's Supermarkets and Smiths have co-operated with the Agency and are undertaking a full recall of these products.

The risk from occasionally eating small amounts of aflatoxins is likely to be very small. However, aflatoxins have been shown to cause cancer in animals and there is also some evidence to suggest they may be harmful to people. Therefore, we want to keep people's exposure as low as possible.

Aflatoxins are a group of naturally occurring compounds called mycotoxins, produced by certain moulds growing on some food crops during production and storage.

Mycotoxins are found in a wide range of foods around the world. They occur mainly in commodities imported from the tropics and sub-tropics, in particular groundnuts (peanuts), edible nuts, dried figs, spices and maize, and similar products.

Expert scientific opinion is that their presence in food should be kept as low as reasonably practicable. There is a legal limit for the amount of aflatoxin B1 that is permitted in rice and processed products containing rice: 2 parts per billion.

The Agency was alerted to this issue by Smiths Flour Mills, a subsidiary of Northern Foods. They told the Agency that they had found high levels of aflatoxins in routine testing of their rice flour and have stopped any further flour from the affected batches entering the food supply. The Agency understands that the contaminated rice, imported from Sweden by TBA Suntra UK Ltd, originated in Pakistan.

The Agency has been working to establish the details of the affected products and the levels of contamination. The Agency has requested companies to recall any products where the levels of aflatoxins in the final product would exceed the legal limit.

The Agency has today issued Food Alerts to local authorities to inform them of the actions taken to remove the affected products from sale. It has also contacted the European Commission with details of distribution of product to other Member States.

Food alerts are the FSA's way of letting local authorities and consumers know about problems associated with food and, in some cases, providing details of specific action to be taken. They are issued under two categories:

• Food Alerts: for Action
• Food Alerts: for Information

The UK Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) has, since 1981, recommended that aflatoxin levels in food should be reduced to the lowest levels technologically practicable. The EC's Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) also concluded that levels should be reduced to the lowest practicable. The legal limit for aflatoxin B1 in cereals, including rice, is 2 micrograms per kilogram or 2 parts per billion.

Rice flour is used in food production as a thickener and also to produce the crispy texture in products such cereals, crackers etc. It is also used to make the crisped rice used in some chocolate bars.