Too soon to assume China is source of contaminated frozen berries, MPI officials tell MPs

Ministry for Primary Industries officials say no link was found between frozen berries from China blamed for an outbreak of Hepatitis A in Australia early this year and fruit finding its way on to the New Zealand market.

Director-General Martyn Dunne and deputies Scott Gallacher and Deborah Roche were appearing before the primary production select committee for the ministry's annual review and were questioned by Labour's food safety spokesman Damien O'Connor and Green MP Stefan Browning on why no brands or countries of origin for contaminated frozen berries had been identified yet.

Australia had at least 28 cases of Hepatitis A that were tied to brands of frozen berries imported from China. Mr Gallacher said the two countries shared a lot of information after Australia was able to identify both the strain of the virus and a specific brand, and New Zealand officials did "due diligence" to ensure that brand wasn't supplying New Zealand and "hasn't been to this day." Information sharing has been improved via agreements and the shared Food Standards Australia New Zealand body that straddles the two countries.

Yesterday, the ministry imposed an emergency food standard on imported frozen berry fruits, tightening scrutiny and requiring importers to conduct their own tests of samples of their fruit. This follows four cases of Hepatitis A reported. An MPI warning said if people were worried they could heat frozen berries above 85 degrees Celsius for one minute, and the elderly and people with chronic liver damage should avoid frozen imported berries that hadn't been heat treated.

If the link to the imported berries is confirmed, it would have been as a result of being contaminated with faeces during handling, either from an infected food handler or from the use of human waste either in field irrigation or from faecally contaminated water used in processing, said John Brooks, a consultant microbiologist at Microtech Services. The virus can take up to 50 days to cause symptoms in consumers, making it hard to pinpoint with only four cases of infection to date and the large volume of frozen imported berries, he said.

New Zealand imports frozen berries from China, Chile, Canada and other countries.

Mr O'Connor, who has a boysenberry farm at Motueka, asked if there was any reason to think any other source countries were involved, to which Mr Gallacher said stricter screening had been put in place for all imported berries because the information to date hadn't identified the source country. Mr Dunne added that it was "not fair to that country because we're not sure."

"At what stage will New Zealand consumers or businesses know they've got contaminated berries in their freezer or what brands they should stop buying," Mr O'Connor asked, to which Mr Gallacher replied it would hopefully be very shortly as MPI further refines its investigation.

The officials were also questioned about footage shown on Television New Zealand's Sunday show of cruel treatment of bobby calves, the unwanted offspring of cows that can then be milked. MPI director-general Dunne said the ministry had been alerted to video footage in September, had visited the site and had an open investigation, which was widened when the latest footage came to light. Prosecutions were possible down the track and the ministry was treading carefully given some of the sensitivities, including that the footage was taken secretly with hidden cameras by animal advocacy groups Farmwatch and SAFE.

Dunne also said a major campaign would get under way this week, nationally and possibly internationally, "to correct some of the language" used in reporting the cruelty to the calves, which only involved "the behaviour of a few." Mr O'Connor then asked whether MPI's response amounted to a "PR campaign."

Asked after the meeting whether there were any issues for MPI in needing to protect the reputation of New Zealand as a producer of high-quality foods and its role in ensuring food safety and animal welfare, Mr Gallacher said: "We're aware of reputational impact and we will take that into account" but there was no confusion of roles.

(BusinessDesk)