Danone’s fruit yoghurt withdrawn from shelves under suspicion of Dioxin contamination

A batch of fruit yoghurt suspect of being contaminated with dioxin was withdrawn from shelves nationwide, vice-president of the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA) Laszlo Csutak stated for Rompres.

Danone has withdrawn an unspecified number of yoghurts from the Romanian market, citing the risk of dioxin contamination by one it its ingredients, guar gum, also known as E412.

‘In line with European Commission recommendations, immediately after an alert was raised on 14 August, Danone took steps to stop the use of the substance containing the suspect guar gum,’ the group said in a press release.

‘The goods were ordered under lock until we receive the results of the tests on the samples collected from the suspect products,’ added Laszlo Csutak, vice-president of the ANSVA. He specified that the samples were sent to the Community Reference Laboratory in Budapest.

‘The results will come probably next week, because analyses usually take 7 to 10 days,’ said Csutak.

On August 14, ANSVSA received a notification through the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed regarding the presence in fruit yoghurts of guar gum possibly contaminated with dioxin. Based on the information received, the Authority ordered an investigation, through a memo sent to all Veterinary County Departments.

The ANSVSA vice-president said that according to European regulations, he is not allowed to give to publicity information about the amount of food withdrawn from shelves, the producer or importer thereof, before the results from the Community Reference Laboratory in Budapest arrive.

The batches of products standing under contamination suspicion will stay under sanitary – veterinary ban until the lab results arrive.

Guar gum is a natural product obtained from an Indian bean bush cultivated in India, Pakistan, the south of the US, and which is used in the food industry as additive, as a thickening, stabilizing and emulsifying agent. Dioxin is a cancer-producing substance.