In the continuing scandal in China, where baby formula has been found contaminated with melamine and sickening tens of thousands of children, other products are being discovered.

Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has said that its laboratory test have shown that the “White Rabbit Creamy Candy” from China is also contaminated with melamine.

Consumers who have bought the affected products are advised not to consume them, the AVA said in a statement.

Read more here:

“White Rabbit creamy candy” found to contain melamine

Be cautious of any milk product from China at the moment while they sort this out.

Here’s another report with more lists of products:
Contaminated candy, milk, desserts pulled across Asia (Reuters)

I’m pretty sure I read that this is the same chemical that was involved in the big pet food recall that happened last year

bettyfelon - 22 September 2008 12:02 PM

I’m pretty sure I read that this is the same chemical that was involved in the big pet food recall that happened last year

Yes it is.

Melamine is added to “protien” ingredients as a filler. It’s not immediately detectable with the current methods, but is obviously quite poisonous to humans and pets. I’m guessing the stuff that’s making its way into candy is in much lower concentrations, whereas the stuff in the milk formulas may have been all those children were eating so got much higher doses.

I feel so bad for those babies who are sick, their parents must feel awful since they thought they were making good product choices well and angry about being betrayed by a company they trusted. (I’m not sure how they feel about the government, but they’ve really dropped the ball here as it apppears that they knew for months.)

Melamine scare is spreading to other confectionery made in China.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/09/29/candy.milk.ap/index.html

I have some M&Ms;from China that my boss brought back from the Olympics. I wonder if they’re okay. (I haven’t eaten them, just took pictures of the packages.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/typetive/2812910896/

Please tell me that here in the US we are unaffected by these recalls?  We get our Cadbury chocolate from the Hershey’s factory here in the US?  I will have to see where my chocolate is manufactured...I haven’t noticed any chocolate made out of the US, unless it’s from Canada or the UK.  I love Cadbury...and would hate to know that it was manufactured somewhere outside the US.  Should we be concerned??

Crabmuffin - 29 September 2008 10:19 AM

Please tell me that here in the US we are unaffected by these recalls?  We get our Cadbury chocolate from the Hershey’s factory here in the US?  I will have to see where my chocolate is manufactured...I haven’t noticed any chocolate made out of the US, unless it’s from Canada or the UK.  I love Cadbury...and would hate to know that it was manufactured somewhere outside the US.  Should we be concerned??

Cadbury sold in the US that’s manufactured by Hershey’s is made with “chocolate crumb” directly from Cadbury. (The crumb is the milk & chocolate mixture that gives Cadbury its distinctive taste and is probably proprietary so they didn’t even give Hershey’s the recipe to make it under their labels.)

I can’t say for certainty that the crumb that contains dairy for Cadbury comes from milk sourced in Europe and not Asia - but my best guess is that Cadbury is using locally sourced milk (again, that’s what gives it its distinctive taste, why would they muck with that?).

But my confidence level is very high that these products are not contaminated.

You might want to send Hershey’s or Cadbury a note via their online contact forms just to see if they have an official response.

Yes, what a good idea, I will email them right now (Cadbury/Hershey’s), and I will report my response here!  Thanks for responding so fast though, who knows how long Hershey’s will take, lol! 

I have some white rabbit candies in my cupboard that were purchased from World Market in July.  Do you think those are affected as well?

xcherry54x - 29 September 2008 01:06 PM

I have some white rabbit candies in my cupboard that were purchased from World Market in July.  Do you think those are affected as well?

It’s hard to know, I haven’t seen any inventory numbers or batches mentioned. I would suggest returning them to Cost Plus World Market for a refund and let them sort it out. (Let us know if they give you any trouble with that.)

Here’s another link. The National Confectioners Association has addressed it on their blog:

http://candydishblog.com/2008/09/29/nca-chocolate-is-safe-from-melamine-contamination-but-white-rabbit-recalled/

I’m asking Carl (from the NCA) about the issues mentioned above with Cadbury made in the States.

My guess is that the Cadbury products sent to Hershey are fine, but you may want to double-check with Cadbury and Hershey if you want the official word. I would be very surprised to learn that the milk in the British chocolate from Cadbury is from China. It doesn’t seem to make any sense, when England has its own dairy farms.

But give them a call. PR folks love to spread the good word about their products!

Cheers,
Carl

I wrote them a letter, only to get it rejected somehow, lol!  But..I did see a news snippet on their website that may quell some fears:

http://www.hersheys.com/recall/chinamilk.asp

Hope this helps…

CrabMuffin - thanks for posting that!

Cheers,
Carl

A couple more to add to the list:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7643391.stm

“In the latest recalls:

* Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever announced it was withdrawing Lipton-brand milk tea powder in Hong Kong and Macau, after internal tests found traces of the chemical in four batches of the product
* Hong Kong authorities said they found melamine in three other products: Pocky Men’s Coffee Cream Coated Biscuit Sticks (made by Japan’s Ezaki Glico Co) and Walnut Cakes and Coconut Cakes (made by China’s Tian Le Yuan Foods)”

And the article on Cadbury’s products seems to say it’s just what’s available in Asia including Australia:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7641317.stm

“He emphasised that the only goods affected were those made in the company’s Beijing factory, and not those produced in the UK or elsewhere. “

Found this article this morning on yahoo news seems its creeping into our candy in the states now :(

An industrial chemical blamed for sickening thousands of infants in China was found in candy in four Connecticut stores this week, a state official said Wednesday.
Days after contaminated White Rabbit Creamy Candy was found in California, Connecticut Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr. said tests found melamine in bags of the candy sold at two New Haven stores, a West Hartford market and an East Haven store.

here is a link for the full article
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081001/ap_on_bi_ge/candy_melamine

Yeah, but that’s still the same story - Chinese milk in the same Chinese candy here in the States.

Check your labels before buying products to see if they contain milk AND are made in China. You will find precious few, if any, of these products here in the States. A handful in Asian type supermarkets. Other milk-containing candies are fine. If you have a doubt, simply don’t buy it. We are blessed in this part of the world to have about five choices at least for any one product and there are plenty of other products that will satisfy your sweet tooth!

White Rabbit is the only candy here in the States identified that I know about.

I wandered through Cost Plus World Market and they do still have White Rabbit on the store shelves. I also checked out their Pocky, they only had the classic, not the cappuccino one mentioned above.

I saw this post in one of our local Los Angeles blogs that went around Chinatown to see what was still on the shelves:

http://haphazardgourmet.blogspot.com/2008/09/melamine-contaminated-chinese-milk.html

Most importantly is this link:

http://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/whatsnew/whatsnew_fstr/whatsnew_fstr_Test_results_of_dairy_product_samples.html

The Hong Kong Center for Food Safety is publishing a list daily of foods that they’ve tested and they list the ones that fail (and how badly) as well as what has been tested and deemed safe (so that you know that you can continue to eat it or chose that over another product). The only failing in this list is that they’re testing batches and listing the expiry on them - contamination could have occured in batches before or after the ones that were tested. So as Carl mentioned, if you don’t have to eat it, you probably should just chose something made in the US, Canada or Europe for now.

The PDFs posted have both English, Chinese and actual pictures of the products to help you identify them.