Dutch police make arrests in contaminated eggs case

The German agriculture ministry estimates that 10.7 million possibly contaminated eggs were delivered to Germany from the Netherlands, according to a report to be published in the Rheinische Post newspaper on Friday.

The ministry, in response to a query from the Greens party, also cited growing concerns about processed foods that might contain contaminated eggs, and said data received from the Dutch and Belgian governments had been "insufficient", the paper said.

Romania's food safety authority, ANSVSA, seized one tonne of German origin liquid egg yolk contaminated with fipronil from a warehouse in the western county of Timis, it said on Thursday.

"The quantity was seized from the storage space of the unit which received it from Germany. No amount of that bunch was sold on the Romanian market. The 1,000-kilogram egg yolk will be neutralized by incineration," ANSVSA said.

In Britain, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said it had found more eggs than previously believed had entered the food chain, mainly through processed food.

"It is very unlikely that these eggs pose a risk to public health, but as Fipronil is unauthorised for use in food-producing animals we have acted with urgency to ensure that consumers are protected," it said.

It is likely that the number of potentially contaminated eggs to enter the UK is closer to 700,000 than 21,000 previously reported, the FSA said.

Reuters