A further 35 products have been found to have been made with spices that could be contaminated with an illegal dye, Para Red, according to the Food Standards Agency, which said it had received the information from food businesses.
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The products are being withdrawn from sale by the companies concerned, the agency said.
“At the levels found the risk from eating any of these foods is very small, but as a precaution it would be sensible not to eat them,” it said. “The amounts of Para Red found in the spices are very low.”
“Over the past three days, the Agency has been working with the UK food industry to identify the affected products,” it said. “These investigations are continuing and more products may well be found.”
“Para Red, like Sudan I, is an illegal dye that should not be in food. People understandably don’t expect or want it to be in their food,” said the agency’s director of food safety Dr Andrew Wadge.
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By GlobalData“At the levels being found the risk is likely to be very small indeed, but it is right that food businesses are removing these products from sale,” he said. “We are pleased that the European Commission is going to develop a European-wide approach to tackling this issue. Concerted action across Europe is the most effective way forward.”
Para Red is an industrial dye that is not permitted for use in food. It is chemically similar to Sudan I, a dye that was implicated in the contamination of other food products in February.
The contaminated spice was supplied by Spanish company, Ramon Sabater, and is believed to originate in Uzbekistan, it said. This is a separate batch to that which resulted in a recall for Old El Paso Dinner kits. The spice was imported into the UK by Lion Foods who supplied a number of companies.
The list of products involved includes sauces, paté and terrine from Asda, the Co-op, Sainsbury, Tesco and Waitrose.
