Hong Kong's food safety agency said Sunday it has found unsafe levels of the industrial chemical melamine in two chocolate products made by British candy maker Cadbury at its Beijing factory. The two items were among 11 Chinese-made products that have already been recalled by Cadbury in parts of Asia and the Pacific. Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety said samples of the two products contained considerably more melamine than the city's legal limit of 2.5 parts per million. Cadbury's Dairy Milk Hazelnut Chocolate Bulk Pack contained 56 parts per million of melamine, while Dairy Milk Cookies Chocolate contained 6.9 parts per million, the center said. “Based on the levels detected, the public is advised to stop consuming the products concerned,” a center spokesman said in a statement. Calls to Cadbury offices in London and Asia Pacific went unanswered Sunday. Cadbury last week ordered a recall of its Chinese-made products after its own preliminary tests revealed what it said were traces of melamine in chocolates produced at its Beijing factory. The Hong Kong food safety center tested other Cadbury products during the past week and found them to have legally acceptable melamine levels. The city's Centre for Food Safety said in a statement that the two products – Dairy Milk Cookies Chocolate and Dairy Milk Hazelnut Chocolate, both sold in five-kilo bulk packs – contained unacceptable levels of the toxic chemical. Both products were among 11 recalled by Cadbury in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia last week, after the company said its own tests had “cast doubt on the integrity” of some items made at its Beijing plant. The Centre said six other Cadbury products were tested and found to be safe for consumers. The remaining three products could not be tested due to lack of a sufficient sample.Four children have died and some 53,000 have fallen ill in China after drinking milk or milk products laced with melamine, which is usually used in making plastics. Some manufacturers had been using the chemical to make watered-down milk appear to have a higher protein content. An array of China-made foods and drinks have been removed from shelves around the world.
