US FDA warns vs China instant coffee

BEIJING – After the famous White Rabbit candy now comes a US warning against consuming Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products that were made in China.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended Friday that consumers not eat White Rabbit candy and that retailers remove it from sale. The agency also recommended avoiding Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products being recalled by Taiwan’s King Car Food Industrial Co. Ltd., though it said it was not aware of any illnesses in the United States linked to either the candy or the coffee and tea products.

As of Thursday, FDA testing of milk-based products imported to the US from China had not found any melamine contamination, an agency statement said.

Meanwhile, the iconic White Rabbit brand took a hit after it was linked to the tainted milk scandal.

They were Premier Zhou Enlai’s favorite late-night snack. He loved White Rabbit candy so much he gave a bag to US President Richard Nixon during his historic visit to China.

It’s not the first time White Rabbit has faced allegations of contamination. Last year, it was at the heart of another controversy, with the Philippine government claiming the candy contained formaldehyde and demanding a recall. The company blamed counterfeit candy for the problem.

But the Shanghai-based maker of the candy said Friday it had halted production because of suspected melamine contamination. The chewy vanilla-flavored White Rabbit sweets have already been pulled from shelves around Asia and in Britain.

The Guan Sheng Yuan Co. was still waiting for test results on samples of its exported products, but all sales have been stopped as a precaution, said Ge Junjie, a vice president of Bright Foods (Group) Co. Ltd., which owns the Shanghai maker.

“It’s a tragedy for the Chinese food industry and a big lesson for us as it ruined the time-honored brand,” Ge was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Daily.

The popular sweets are sold in more than 50 countries throughout Asia and the world. Overseas sales have reached $160 million in the past five years.

Iconic White Rabbit

Tests in Singapore and New Zealand this week found White Rabbit sweets were tainted with melamine.

The widening scandal has dealt a huge blow to China’s leading candy maker, which has been producing the hugely popular sweets for about a half-century.

“White Rabbit is a famous brand, with huge brand assets. It’s almost an icon and carries lots of memories. Imagine if the same thing happened to Coca-Cola,” said branding expert Kara Chan, a professor in the communication studies department at Hong Kong Baptist University.

White Rabbit was first produced in 1959, “in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China,” according to the company website.

Its historic pedigree got an even bigger boost in 1972 when the Chinese premier gave the candy, along with two pandas, as a state gift for the visiting President Nixon as a sign of friendship.

Virtually all Chinese have fond memories of the sticky, taffy-like confection wrapped in edible rice paper. With its distinctive red, white, and blue packaging and wide-eyed namesake, White Rabbit candies are ubiquitous, routinely offered up in homes throughout China.

“When we were in school, all my classmates liked White Rabbit,” said Su Yan, a 19-year-old sales clerk. “Girls would ask their boyfriends to buy it for them and the candy would be served on occasions like holiday receptions, a graduation party and wedding ceremonies.”

Retailer Carrefour and supermarket chain Jingkelong in Beijing said their stores have pulled the candy off their shelves, but other grocers, including one in the popular Silk Market, still stocked it on Friday.

Tea stall owner Yuan Yaqi, a self-described White Rabbit fan, had a five-pound bag open beside her as she waited for customers Friday.

Yuan said she had not heard about the melamine contamination ban, but said, “If White Rabbit was gone forever, I would feel very sad.”

Concern about White Rabbit candy has spread as far as South America, where health authorities in Suriname ordered stores to stop selling it as a precautionary measure. The candy is widely available in Suriname, where people of Chinese heritage make up roughly eight percent of the population.

In Peru, White Rabbit candy was among five milk-based Chinese products banned for import or sale by the health ministry.

Latest problematic foods

On Friday, the list of products caught in China’s tainted milk scandal grew to include baby cereal in Hong Kong and snack foods in Japan, while Taiwan reported three children and a mother with kidney stones in the island’s first cases possibly linked to the crisis.

The Japanese government also said it had suspended imports of milk and milk products from China, where some 54,000 children have developed kidney stones or other illnesses after drinking baby formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. Four deaths have been blamed on the tainted milk.

The latest problematic foods were Heinz baby cereal and Silang House steamed potato wasabi crackers. The Hong Kong government said in a statement Friday it found traces of melamine in the products, which were both made in mainland China.

Hong Kong urged the manufacturers to stop selling the products in the Chinese territory. US-based Heinz ordered a recall of the baby cereal as a precautionary measure following the government’s announcement, it said in a statement on its website.

In Japan, the Marudai Food Co. pulled its cream buns, meat buns and creamed corn crepes from supermarkets a week ago and tests have found traces of contamination in several products, Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry official Mina Kojima said Friday.

So far, there were no reports of health problems stemming from the contamination, she said. Marudai has sold more than 300,000 of the products, most of which are believed to have been consumed.

News of that contamination came after the Chinese territory of Macau said it detected melamine at 24 times the safety limit in products from another Japan-based company, Koala’s March cookies made by Lotte China Foods Co. The company is a member of a Tokyo-based conglomerate, Lotte Group.

An official at Lotte (China) Investment Co. Ltd. in Shanghai said Friday previous inspections had not shown any problems.

“But now that it tested positive in Macau, we find it necessary to do the inspections all over again,” said Guo Hongming, a legal assistant in Lotte Shanghai’s corporate planning department.

First cases reported in Taiwan

Meanwhile, Taiwanese authorities reported that three children who consumed Chinese milk formula had developed kidney stones, and doctors were checking whether their illnesses were linked to tainted products.

The two three-year-old girls and a one-year-old boy traveled frequently between Taiwan and China with their parents, said Liu Yi-lien, health chief of the Ilan county government in eastern Taiwan. One of the girls’ mothers also has kidney stones, he said.

“They have all consumed Chinese milk, but more tests are needed to establish the link to their kidney stones,” Liu said.

The cases are the first reports of illnesses on the island that could be related to tainted Chinese milk products. Six children have also become ill from melamine-tainted products in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau.

Still, the World Health Organization said it did not expect the number of victims to grow dramatically.

WHO China representative Hans Troedsson said public awareness of the issue meant many young children were getting health checks and avoiding tainted products. – AP