China's food safety watchdog announced on Tuesday that it had
discovered seven companies producing salted red-yolk eggs
contaminated with the dangerous red Sudan dyes.
The companies were in Beijing and the provinces of Hebei, Anhui,
Henan, Zhejiang and Hubei, said the State Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in a statement.
The agency had required the companies to stop production and
sales, recall all the problematic egg products and destroy
them.
It asked local departments to further strengthen checks on egg
products and take substantive measures to properly supervise the
egg processing industry.
Sudan dyes are used legally in the leather and fabric
industries, but are banned for food use. Last year, the Ministry of
Agriculture reiterated the ban after the dyes were found in some
brands of pepper sauce, chili oil and KFC's New Orleans roast
chicken wings.
Wild ducks that eat small fish and shrimps usually produce
red-yolk eggs, which are believed to be more nutritious than
yellow-yolk eggs.
The contamination of duck eggs was first found in Hebei, where farmers fed ducks with the dyes
to turn the yolks red.
(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2006)