Food inspectors in Saudi Arabia have discovered the potentially dangerous chemical melamine in Chinese-made milk powder distributed by Nestle in the Kingdom, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority said in a statement. However, the world's largest food group rejected the report. Melamine traces were found in tins of Nesvita Pro-Bones milk powder from five different production dates in 2007 and 2008. The authority named the product as a 400-gram pack of Nesvita Pro Bones and said the batch was produced on May 6, 2008 by a Nestle plant in China. Tn a posting on its website on Tuesday, the authority said the product must not be used by consumers of any age. It said it had also found melamine concentrations harmful to chidren in three other batches of the same brand - in 1,800- and 900-gram packs, which were made Nov. 19, 2007 and on Feb. 25, 2008. It said the tainted powder was discovered in a random survey of 52 samples of imported products containing milk powder. “The SFDA found five samples from all the samples tested... tainted with melamine,” it said. All of the products were made in China or in countries which have found melamine-tainted products, the Saudi authority added. The Saudi agency also found melamine in a chocolate wafer cream it identified as “Apollo” made by Malaysia-based Apollo Food Industries on June, 5, 2008. Reacting on the report, Nestle said in a statement that “all Nestle dairy products sold in Saudi Arabia - just as anywhere else in the world - are absolutely safe for consumption. No Nestle product is made from milk adulterated with melamine.” “Now the company's denied it and said all products are safe, but it looks like nobody believes it because the shares are still being sold,” one Zurich-based trader said. Shares in Nestle had fallen some 3 percent to 41.42 Swiss francs, underperforming a 2.26 percent drop in the Dow Jones Stoxx European food and beverage index. Nestle said it had organized a withdrawal of Nesvita Pro Bones Low Fat after a request from Saudi Arabia on Oct. 18 to pull milk products made in China, pending results of tests. Nestle further said its tests on the product - as well as those by an independent laboratory - gave results well below limits defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as by authorities in Canada, New Zealand and the European Union. China has lifted to six the number of babies believed killed from drinking a melamine-tainted milk formula and raised the number affected to 294,000. Melamine is an industrial compound found in plastics that has been used to fool government protein content tests. Chinese media first reported in September that babies had fallen ill after consuming melamine-tained formula, rocking faith in Chinese
