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June 3, 2012

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Duck eggs with cancer-threat salt seized

MORE than 100,000 salted duck eggs and 2.2 tons of cancer-causing industrial salt used to preserve them have been seized by the authorities in a raid in Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province.

The industrial salt contains nitrite, the long-term intake of which can lead to cancer, reported the Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday.

The authorities said they are now searching for tainted eggs on sale and recently sold but admitted it is an uphill task as most salted duck eggs are sold in bulk without brands and batch numbers, posing difficulties for investigations and recalls.

Jiangmen quality supervision officials and police raided the underground salted egg production site in Jianghai District on the early hours of Friday, after receiving a tip-off at 10pm in the previous night.

The production site was located in a 50-square-meter store in Jianghai. In a small room attached there were more than 40 packs of industrial salt and 102,200 salted eggs worth 57,000 yuan (US$9,048).

The boss of the production plant and two workers were apprehended by officials on the site.

According to the report, the boss, surnamed Liu, is a local person and the two workers are from other provinces. Together they could produce more than 3,000 salted eggs a day, it is claimed.

Liu said his salted eggs were mainly sold to local wet markets in Jiangmen. He had no records on the sales volume but said stores in the nearby Wenchang market, Lile market and Lezhong market were usually big buyers.

He said the price for industrial salt is 500 yuan to 800 yuan per tonne, while edible salt is about 1,000 yuan.

Jiangmen Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision said it would be difficult for the government to identify and recall all the sold tainted salted eggs.

"We can only stop the violation at the production section, the start of the business chain," said Shi Chengtie from the bureau.

The case has been passed to local police for further investigation.

Salted duck eggs are a traditional Chinese food made by soaking duck eggs in brine, or packing each egg in damp, salted charcoal.

It is an especially popular food in summer, when the weather is hot and many people have a poor appetite.


 

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