New Zealand finds no problems with farmed fish from China

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) has released a comprehensive set of results from its most recent monitoring and surveillance programs, noting that they continue to show that New Zealanders can have confidence in the safety of the food they are eating.

Glen Neal, NZFSA’s Assistant Director (New Zealand Standards) said that “Despite targeting areas where we believed we were most likely to find residues higher than the regulatory limit, we found just one breach in imported food, and a small number in a wide range of tests of New Zealand foods. None of these represented any risks to health.”

“... following public concerns, we looked at imports of Chinese farmed fish. We tested 31 canned and frozen products including shrimp, eel, prawns, dace, carp, anchovy, roe, and fish balls and other processed product. We found six residues of a class of antimicrobials, known as triphenylmethane dyes, and nine residues (two detects in two samples, both of semicarbazide which can occur naturally) of nitrofuran metabolites. Nitrofurans are a class of antibiotics",  Neal, said.

“All of these results – even the highest at 0.058 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg) were well below any level that would pose a health risk. Many of the results were very near to the limit of detection in fact.

“The results we found are similar to those other regulators around the world are finding, and show that the products being sold in New Zealand meet requirements and are safe to consume.”