Hong Kong, Sept 22 - Nestle, the world's largest food company, said on Monday it had recalled a UHT pure milk product in Hong Kong after a local food watchdog discovered samples containing a tiny amount of the chemical melamine.
The move came as China announced that nearly 13,000 infants were now sick in hospital from drinking milk formula tainted with melamine in an escalating food scandal that sparked the resignation of the country's top quality regulator.
Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety (CFS) found one batch of 1-litre Dairy Farm UHT pure milk contained trace amounts of melamine (1.4 ppm or parts per million). The product is not sold directly to the public and is distributed to catering and other commercial organisations in Hong Kong only, Nestle said.
It added that its other products were unaffected.
"While the product does not pose a health risk, Nestle has commenced implementing a recall process for this product in Hong Kong in compliance with a request from CFS to do so," the firm said in a statement.
"Nestle's other milk-based products have been extensively tested by the authorities in mainland China and Hong Kong and it was reconfirmed by the authorities yesterday ... that all other Nestle products tested were safe," Nestle said in its statement.
The 1.4 ppm discovered was 25 times lower than the maximum allowed by the European Union standards, the firm added.