It you want safe milk in Hong Kong, it seems you’ll have to go straight to the cow.
The Centre for Food Safety has recalled both locally produced and imported milk in the past two weeks after weird tastes and unacceptable amounts of bacteria were discovered.
The Yuen Long-based Trappist Dairy was the first offender, with bacteria exceeding the legal limit found in a fresh milk sample on Aug. 21. The same issue was discovered with the Hi-Calcium Low Fat Milk Drink on Aug. 28, and then just yesterday the warning was extended to include the Trappist Dairy Carrot Low Fat Milk Drink.
No-one should probably be drinking the latter product anyway as it sounds about as grim as it gets.
Speaking about the carrot milk vom juice, a CFS spokesman said, “A sample of the product was collected from a Circle K convenience store on the ground floor of 15 Soy Street, Mong Kok, for testing. The result showed that the total bacterial count of the sample was 130,000,000 per milli-litre. According to the Milk Regulation (Cap 132 AQ), milk after heat treatment by means of pasteurisation should not contain more than 30,000 bacteria per milli-litre.”
In case you can’t do maths because you’re too busy puking up milk and carrots, that’s a casual 433 times the limit.
The spokesman did, however, stress that although the test reveals unsatisfactory hygiene conditions, consuming the milk products would not necessarily lead to food poisoning.
But perhaps you were prudent and switched to an Australian brand all the same? We sure hope you didn’t choose Pauls Fresh Milk or Harvey Fresh Milk, as samples of those were found to have a decidedly fusty taste on Aug. 28.
“The Centre received six complaints about strange taste when drinking the above-mentioned products and hence started investigation,” a CFS spokesperson said.
“According to the information provided by Nowaday International Development Limited, the importer concerned, they also received similar complaints and took the initiative to stop sale of the products. The CFS has instructed the importer concerned to recall the two batches of affected products.”
The Hong Kong government has also been assured by Trappist that the mouldy milk products were packed up before a thorough cleaning on Aug. 23.
They have promised to keep on cleaning at regular intervals, which is good of them.
Photo: Steve Wilke
