SFH on Brazilian meat
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Reporter: Why now for the recall? Hasn't it come a little bit too late?
Secretary for Food and Health: I am referring to several pieces of new information that we are able to gather today. Firstly, the Brazilian Government has imposed an export ban to all the 21 factories under investigation. This is very different from the original export ban which was only confined to a few of these 21 factories being investigated. Secondly, colleagues of the Centre for Food Safety have tracked down the import licences and, apart from the five factories already known to have imported meat products to Hong Kong, we are now able to identify one more factory out of these 21 factories. Furthermore, according to the more detailed information provided by the Consul-General of Brazil, the risk of food safety cannot be totally ruled out.
Reporter: Any estimate of how long the recall will take and how much such meat is now actually in the market?
Secretary for Food and Health: In the course of recall process, we will release the information and report the progress to members of the public.
Reporter: What do you want to say to the restaurant sector and the importers who are reporting great losses because of the latest recall and ban?
Secretary for Food and Health: We will continue our close dialogue with the trade.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, March 24, 2017
Issued at HKT 19:29
Issued at HKT 19:29
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