EGYPT – Indomie Egypt has pulled some of its products from Egyptian markets following an order from the Egyptian National Food Safety Authority (NFSA) which labelled Indomie’s chicken and vegetable flavored instant noodles, as well as instant noodles with chili packs as unsafe for human consumption.

After a recent-social media debate regarding the widely-consumed noodles product in the Egyptian markets, NFSA sent samples to central laboratories, to ensure their safety. The noodles, was claimed to cause poisoning and harm to consumers, especially children.

It was also claimed that the spice bags, especially the chili, included inside the noodles package is the reason behind making the children ill, and that it must be removed from the package.

Food safety tests conducted by the Egyptian agency found that Indomie’s chili packets and the chicken and vegetable flavor packets contained aflatoxins and pesticide residues in quantities that exceeded safe limits.

Hussein Mansour, Head of the Food Safety Authority, confirmed in statements that the authority is currently withdrawing samples of the product in the markets, to ensure its safety, and to make sure that it does not have any negative effects on citizens.

So far, Indomie Egypt has withdrawn 733,340 cartons of different Indomie flavors have been withdrawn from the Egyptian market by the supplier.

The noodles company announced that it is currently withdrawing the product from the market, in order to change the outer shape packaging.

Salah Galal, Indomie’s Sales Official, revealed that the company will comply with the directive to remove the chili out of the noodles package, as most of the noodles consumers are children.

NFSA’s directive further required the company to remove the claim written on the product packages regarding the benefits of vitamin B and mineral salts of iron, zinc and calcium.

COMESA Competition Commission raises alarm

The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition Commission (CCA) has raised an alarm that similar products are being imported and marketed in the other Member States of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa which includes Kenya.

“The Commission would like therefore to alert the general public of the risks in consuming above Indomie instant noodles as established by the FSA and to exercise caution on the consumption of the same,” a statement issued indicated.

CCA applies an effective system on food producers to track the process of food manufacturing during all its stages, until it reaches the consumer at various outlets.

The authority stressed that this procedure is carried out almost on a daily basis, in various developed countries of the world where regulatory authorities recall the non-conforming product, in order to ensure the health of the consumer and the reputation of the producing facility.

“Other than those three products, Indomie instant noodles were generally found to be safe for human consumption,” CCA stated.

The product warning comes barely three weeks after the watchdog warned consumers against eating some Kinder Joy chocolates recalled by the Italian candy maker Ferrero from the European and United States markets.

The manufacturer of Kinder Joy voluntarily recalled some of its products over increasing concerns that they might contain salmonella bacteria.

The affected products were manufactured at the company’s plant in Belgium where the bacteria were first detected.

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