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Raids begin on China-based dairy products
If you have a craving for an Oreo sandwich or wafer sticks, M&M’s, Snickers or Indoeskrim Meiji’s Gold Monas ice cream, take careful note of the bar codes on the products’ packaging before buying them
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If you have a craving for an Oreo sandwich or wafer sticks, M&M’s, Snickers or Indoeskrim Meiji’s Gold Monas ice cream, take careful note of the bar codes on the products’ packaging before buying them.
If the code begins with “MD”, which means the product was made locally, then you have nothing to worry about.
However, if the code begins “ML”, which means it was made abroad and probably in China, you should report the product to the shop’s management or to the nearest office of the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) because the product may contain the toxic ingredient melamine.
“Dairy products made here only use milk from local producers or imports from Australia and New Zealand, so they are safe. It is only dairy products made in China that we have to worry about,” BPOM head Husniah Rubiana Thamrin told a news conference in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Many countries have banned imports of Chinese dairy-based products following reports that melamine-contaminated baby milk has left four children dead and 53,000 others ill in China.
Melamine, normally found in plastics, fertilizers and cleaning agents, has allegedly been used by some Chinese milk producers to falsely boost the protein content of diluted milk.
Husniah said the BPOM had sent letters ordering all local food distributors and retailers to remove Chinese dairy products from their shelves and to investigate whether they contained melamine.
Distributors and retailers that defy the order face up to Rp 2 billion (US$214,000) in fines, or a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment, she said.
Included in the letters were the names of 28 Chinese-made dairy products that are banned from being sold in the country.
In addition to the products aforementioned, the list also includes: Jinwei Yougoo yogurt, Guozhen formula milk, Dove Choc candies, Merry X-Mas candies, Penguin candies, Nestle Nesvita Materna (food for pregnant and breastfeeding women) and Nestle Milkmaid milk jam.
Authorities have begun conducting raids in search of the products in shopping centers in many cities across Indonesia, including Batam in Riau Islands, Jambi and Palembang in South Sumatra, Bandung in West Java and Jember in East Java.
In Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, the BPOM and trade officials jointly searched shopping centers Wednesday for these products and secured hundreds of boxes of Oreo wafer sticks and hundreds of packs of M&Ms.
Panca Nugraha contributed to this article from Mataram.
