Food Safety Focus (137th Issue, December 2017) – Food Incident Highlight

Hold and Test Arrangement of EU's Poultry Eggs Has Been Ceased

In August, due to the fipronil incident, the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) has implemented hold and test arrangement of poultry eggs and egg products from European Union (EU) countries at import level. Later, in considering the rectification made by EU, the CFS narrowed the scope of the arrangement to cover five countries only.

In view that all EU countries have taken effective measures, including the implementation of a co-ordinated EU-wide monitoring plan on the presence of illegally used substances in eggs and poultry meat, and effective monitoring of their farms and markets to ensure that eggs and egg products exported to Hong Kong comply with our local legal requirements, the CFS considered the hold and test arrangement was no longer required. The CFS will continue to apply a risk-based approach to test eggs from import, wholesale and retail levels.

Since the incident, other than the eight unsatisfactory samples announced earlier, the CFS has enhanced surveillance on market and collected 226 samples of poultry eggs and egg products from EU countries for fipronil testing and all results were satisfactory.