Botulism is an extremely dangerous form of food poisoning and can cause paralysis
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has questioned why dairy giant Fonterra delayed raising alarm over products contaminated with bacteria that can cause botulism.
His comments came as Russia and China banned imports of affected products, which include baby milk formula.
Fonterra said the bacteria came from a dirty pipe at a processing plant for whey protein concentrate.
New Zealand is the world's largest dairy exporter.
"When you've got a company that's our largest company, our largest brand, our largest exporter that is the flagship for New Zealand and your whole business is about food safety and food quality you think they'd take such a precautionary view to these things and say if it's testing for some reason in an odd way that it would just be discarded until they were absolutely sure that its right," Mr Key said.
He said concerns were raised after a series of tests in May 2012.
Fonterra said the contaminated whey protein concentrate had been exported to China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
So far, there have not been any illnesses reported related to the contaminated products.
China relies heavily on New Zealand for its imports of milk powder. The country experienced a tainted milk scandal in 2008 that killed six babies and made about 300,000 ill.
According to Chinese state media, nearly 80% of dairy products imported by China come from New Zealand.
On Saturday, Fonterra announced that it had found the contamination, which led to a global recall of up to 1,000 tonnes of dairy products in seven countries.
It said the bacteria had been found in three batches of whey protein which had been used in Nutricia Karicare for infants.
Botulism is an extremely dangerous form of food poisoning.
Source: BBC News - Business http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23571248#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
