BPOM confirms melamine contamination in snacks

The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) confirmed Friday claims that certain snack products are contaminated with melamine.

"We have found that chocolate candies with the brand Yake Assorted Candies contain 5.86 ppm of melamine," Agency head Husniah Rubiana Thamrin said during a press briefing at the Ministry of Communication and Information in Jakarta.

Earlier this week, The Indonesian Consumer Group (YLKI) issued a list of 10 products that allegedly contained melamine.

Most of the products were children's snacks and one, Bear Brand Sterilized Low Fat Milk (140 ml), bears the name and logo of multinational food company Nestle.

Nestle has denied the claim, saying that all of its products are safe for consumption.

BPOM said that they found no melamine in the Nestle's brand of low fat milk. However, the product has not been registered with the agency and as thus illegally imported along with the two other products that were found to contain melamine.

"We also discovered two other items in YLKI's list that were illegally imported: Tirol Choco Mix and Fan Fun Sweetheart Biscuits. However, we haven't been able to locate those products, thus we have not tested them for melamine contamination," Husniah said.

She added that the Agency had tested the other five products on YLKI's list besides the five illegally imported ones and discovered that they were free from melamine.

According to Husniah, the Agency's tests results differed from those of YLKI because the agency used a different device.

"In testing those products we used the LC MS/MS, which, according to global standards, is the most reliable option," she said. "YLKI used the HPLC device, which is prone to errors." (dis)