China Bans New Zealand Milk Products Due to Nitrate Contamination

Westland Milk Products were Banned in China. There were elevated nitrate levels in  their lactoferrin powder. exported to China.

The powder, made by West Coast dairy co-operative, Westland Milk Products, has been quarantined with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) revoking export certificates for four of the company's lactoferrin consignments.

"Westland is of the view it is an isolated incident in the lactoferrin plant only, where traces of cleaning products (which contains nitrates) were not adequately flushed from the plant prior to a new run of product," WMP chief executive Rod Quin said. "Our investigation is underway to establish the root cause and we have implemented corrective actions so we can ensure this does not happen again."

Westland has put a hold on all of its lactoferrin in its warehouse and has begun retesting all individual batches. All other lactoferrin product tested to date had returned results well below the New Zealand nitrates limit. No other Westland products were affected.

Westland had reported to the MPIs that two batches of lactoferrin totalling 390 kilograms showed nitrate levels of 610 and 2198 parts per million respectively.The New Zealand maximum limit for nitrates is 150 parts per million.

The product was initially not identified as non-compliant during Westland's routine testing regime before it was exported. All of the 390 kg of non-complying lactoferrin was sent to China."We immediately initiated a process to find and quarantine all of the product and it has been put on hold," Quin said.

Nitrates were a naturally occurring substance found in such foods as leafy green vegetables. The issue was not that it was present in the lactoferrin powder, but that the 390kg was over allowable levels.

"Food safety is not the issue in this instance because lactoferrin is used as a very minor ingredient in food products. This means that, even if the lactoferrin with elevated nitrates had been added to food, the retail products would still have nitrate levels significantly below allowed limits."

The WMP issues comes a few weeks after New Zealand's largest company, dairy co-operative Fonterra, became embroiled in a scandal involving in the export of milk powder that had the potential to cause botulism.

The lactoferrin is either being held as a final product in itself or it is being held in the final product in which it has been used and none of that has been released to the market.''

Lactoferrin is used in a range of applications from yogurt to infant formula, where it is used to make bovine milk more like human milk.

It was too early to know if the breach would have any long term consequences for Tatua trading in the China market.