About 700,000 eggs from Dutch farms implicated in a contamination scare have been distributed to Britain and some supermarket products have been withdrawn, the Food Standards Agency has said. The FSA said investigations into the fipronil incident in Europe suggested it was “very unlikely” that the eggs posed a risk to public health, but the number of contaminated eggs estimated to have reached the UK is far higher than the 21,000 first estimated. Products withdrawn include salads from Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda plus sandwiches from Waitrose and Morrisons.

The FSA added that some of the products made from these eggs will have had a short shelf life and will have already been consumed, but some were still within the expiry date and were being withdrawn by the businesses involved.

The FSA said in a statement: “The decision to withdraw these products is not due to food safety concerns, but is based on the fact that fipronil is not authorised for use in food producing animals. The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland are committed to ensuring that food is safe, and that UK consumers have food they can trust. “We are reminding food businesses of their legal responsibilities which include informing the FSA or FSS and relevant local authorities immediately if they have any reason to believe that a food which they have imported, produced, processed, or distributed does not comply with food safety requirements.”

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “The safety of our products is our priority. Our supplier has made us aware that two salad bowls, which contain egg, may include very small traces of fipronil. The FSA has advised that this is unlikely to pose a health risk, but we’re withdrawing these products from sale on a temporary basis as a precautionary measure. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.”(theguardian)…[+]