ANZFA CLEARS MOST SOY SAUCES
The Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) today announced that, following extensive testing, only two brands of soy sauce has been found to contain unacceptable levels of cancer-causing chemicals.
Food enforcement agencies have ordered a recall of two soy sauce products under the 'Golden Mountain' brand and one under the 'Wanjashan' brand from sale and distribution in Australia after tests showed results greatly in excess of ANZFA' s proposed new standard.
Results of the tests can be found on the ANZFA website at www.foodstandards.gov.au .
Last month, ANZFA commissioned a survey of soy and oyster sauce products to test for the presence of chemicals called chloropropanols - especially 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP - which can contaminate the product during manufacture.
ANZFA' s Managing Director Ian Lindenmayer said tests of approximately thirty samples showed that Australian-produced and most imported soy and oyster sauces did not contain significant levels of the contaminants.
However, three of the products tested, from Golden Mountain and Wanjashan, were found to contain high levels of chloropropanols. These products have been recalled.
' Following worrying test results from the United Kingdom earlier this year, we commissioned our own tests, and are now in a position to clear all domestically-produced soy and oyster sauces and all but two brands of imported product,' Mr Lindenmayer said.
' I particularly want to send a message to retailers, restaurants, butchers and chicken shops that may use soy sauce in their businesses, that these Golden Mountain and Wanjashan products have been recalled and it is illegal to sell them.'
Mr Lindenmayer said the ANZFA Board has recommended to the Food Standards Council that the Food Standards Code be amended to set an upper limit for chloropropanols (3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP) in soy and oyster sauces sold in Australia and New Zealand.
The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) will continue to 'hold and test' imported soy sauce products at the border. These products will not be released onto the market until test results show that the levels of chloropropanols are in line with those recommended to the Food Standards Council.