Agencies

• Eclairs, Dairy Milk withdrawn from Asian, Australian markets after scare

London, Sep 30: Cadbury, the British confectionery giant, is the latest company to be hit by the tainted milk scandal that has left at least four babies dead in China. The company has withdrawn 11 chocolate products made in Beijing — including Cadbury Eclairs and bulk packets of Dairy Milk — after tests had raised concerns. Sweets sold in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia had also been recalled as a precautionary step.

Other items possibly affected are dark and milk chocolate, hazelnut and praline chocolate, dark Chocettes and products made especially for the Chinese New Year which falls in February. Cadbury Asia Pacific said: ‘We have received results that cast doubt on the integrity of a range of our products manufactured in China.”

The Hong Kong government said their laboratories would check the products for melamine. A spokesman for Cadburys in London said: “The withdrawal is due to concern about the possibility of melamine contamination in our chocolate.”

Melamine – used in the manufacture of plastics and glue – was mixed into diluted milk at collecting stations in an attempt to boost the protein levels and to bamboozle tests since it contains high levels of nitrogen that shows up as a protein.

The scandal has widened rapidly across the world since Fonterra, the New Zealand partner of Chinese dairy producer Sanlu Group, prompted its government to blow the whistle on an attempted cover-up of the tainted milk.

An estimated 53,000 children across China have sickened after being fed Sanlu milk powder and 13,000 have been treated in hospital for kidney stones and other kidney and organ problems after drinking the formula laced with melamine.

Last week, Cadbury said three factories from which it sources its dairy ingredient supplies in China had been tested by the government and no melamine had been found.

However, a growing list of Chinese milk and milk-related products have been removed from shelves around the world in recent weeks as the scandal has spread. Several countries in Africa and Asia that distributed Sanlu formula – once one of China’s premier brands – have halted imports.