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HONG KONG: Anglo-Dutch company Unilever has recalled brands of Lipton milk tea powder in Hong Kong and Macau after they were found tainted with an industrial chemical, the company said on Tuesday.
Unilever Hong Kong Ltd has found the chemical melamine in four batches of the powder during its internal testing, the company said in a statement.
The recall is the latest fallout from the toxic milk scandal, which has sickened some 53,000 babies and killed four on mainland China.
Chinese officials have struggled in recent weeks to contain the scandal as a growing range of China-made dairy products have been pulled off shelves across the world, tarnishing the "Made in China" brand.
The Unilever statement said the company was taking the move as a precautionary measure. The Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety called on the public to stop drinking the products concerned.
"We have alerted the trade and asked them to stop selling the products. We will collect samples for testing and are closely monitoring the situation," said a spokesman for the centre in a statement.
It is unclear whether the four batches were made in China.
The centre also announced three other brands of cakes and snacks were found with melamine after testing, which started after the scandal broke and are ongoing, on a range of products imported to the Asian financial hub.
Fv Walnut Cakes and Coconut Cakes and Glico Pocky Mens Coffee Cream Coated Biscuit Sticks contained unacceptable levels of melamine and would be recalled, the centre said in a separate statement.
The moves come just one day after British sweet maker Cadbury said it had recalled its China-made chocolates from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia after tests "cast doubt" on their safety.
China on Tuesday arrested 27 people in their probe into the scandal, which has spread beyond the initial brands of baby powder discovered this month.
More than a dozen Asian and African countries, plus the 27-member European Union, have taken steps to ban or limit consumption of products containing Chinese dairy.
Four children have died in China after drinking milk tainted with melamine, which is normally used to make plastics but can make watered-down milk appear richer in protein.
Thousands of children have also fallen ill, many with kidney stones and related problems. - AFP/de
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