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Mass recall in Germany of 73,000 eggs contaminated with insecticide

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Mass recall in Germany of 73,000 eggs contaminated with insecticide
Photo: DPA

Thousands of eggs for sale in Germany have been found to contain traces of an insect killer. This comes less than a year after the same insecticide found its way into millions of eggs in the Netherlands and Germany.

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Eggs from the Netherlands contaminated with the insecticide Fipronil have once again landed in the German retail sector.

The Ministry of Agriculture for Lower Saxony announced on Monday evening that six German states are affected by the egg contamination.

About 73,000 of the contaminated eggs were on sale in Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. Authorities are now trying to locate the eggs in order to take them out of circulation.

According to the authorities, there is currently no health risk for consumers.

The exact supermarket locations containing the eggs are currently unknown.

This recall comes nearly a year after last year’s egg scandal, when millions of eggs found to contain insecticide were pulled from shelves in the Netherlands and Germany.

Some of eggs have already been sold

Roughly 97,200 eggs containing the insecticide were delivered between May 17th and June 4th from the Netherlands to a packing centre in the Lower Saxony district of Vechta.

According to the Ministry, many of these contaminated eggs have already been sold on. The eggs come from a Dutch organic hen farm and the reason for the exposure is not yet known. A request for further information has been sent to the Netherlands.

The Fipronil Scandal

According to Dutch media reports, contaminated eggs had already been found in the Netherlands during random testing in a supermarket in the weeks leading up to the discovery in Germany.

The farmer who was affected by the Fipronil scandal last year told the German Press Agency that he suspects traces of the insecticide may still be in the soil of the meadow where the chickens live.

The insecticide Fipronil, which is illegal for use with food-producing animals, was added to a cleaning agent in 2017 and sold to chicken farmers through a Dutch company.

LEARN MORE: Germany holding back on publishing info about 'contaminated egg scandal'

 

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