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The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department's Centre for Food Safety announced today (May 16) that it would suspend, with immediate effect, beef imports from a processing plant in California, US - Harris Ranch Beef Company.
The decision was made following the discovery of beef imports with bones from that plant during inspections last night by the Centre's Airport Food Inspection Office, a spokesman for the Centre said.
"Beef imports from the United States resumed on December 29 last year. According to an agreed protocol, only boneless beef from cattle less than 30 months' old, with high-risk materials such as brain and spinal cord removed during slaughtering, could be imported from designated plants approved by the United States.
"We will contact the relevant authorities for more information concerning the beef imports in question," he said.
Ends/Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Issued at HKT 18:39
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