Italy Seizes ‘Dirty’ Nestle Baby Milk

ROME/ZURICH: Italian police seized around 30 million litres of baby milk produced by Nestle yesterday after tests showed traces of ink, and the company said it was recalling the infant food in four European countries.

Nestle said it had recalled batches of the milk in Italy after traces of isopropylthioxanthone (ITX) were discovered by authorities, but said there was no danger to health.

The world’s biggest food company recalled similar products in France, Spain and Portugal.

Italian Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemanno demanded tests to see if babies given the contaminated milk over a prolonged period faced health risks.

“It is incredible that such defenceless beings as babies should face such serious risks in a product as widely used as milk,” Alemanno said in a statement.

An Italian police spokesman said it was not immediately clear whether the substance found in the milk was toxic. Italian officials said they had already seized about 2 million litres of Nestle baby milk earlier this month after finding traces of ITX, an ink component used in the offset printing process of TetraPak cartons.

“After 2 million litres of milk were seized on November 9, we are now seizing 30 million litres of product across all of Italy, not just from depots and supermarkets, but also from lorries,” a police official said.

Nestle said the traces of ITX found did not represent a health risk but that it had decided on its own to recall all liquid infant formula milks packed in offset printed cartons still on the market.

“This decision was taken as an extreme precautionary measure to reassure consumers,” the company said in a statement. “Nestle believes that the level of ITX measured in the tested products does not represent a health risk.”

A spokesman at Nestle’s corporate headquarters in Switzerland said a new packaging process had been put in place to prevent the contamination and that the recall would not have a significant impact on the company’s results at a group level.