Zambia Meat Company Cancels Imports After Formaldehyde Found | Bloomberg: bloomberg/news/2013-07-24/zambia-meat-company-cancels-imports-after-formaldehyde-found.html Zambeef Products Plc, Zambia’s biggest agricultural producer, has stopped importing beef products after the health ministry said it found formaldehyde in some samples. “We are going to stop all imports to ensure that we refocus our business on producing Zambian beef,” Jacob Mwanza, the Lusaka-based company’s chairman, told reporters today in Chisamba, north of the capital. “Zambeef will only provide beef that will be locally grown and locally produced.” Tests in South African laboratories confirmed imported Zambeef products, mainly offal and hooves, contained formaldehyde, Health Minister Joseph Kasonde said in a statement to parliament last week. The chemical, used to embalm corpses and found in cigarette smoke, causes cancer, according to the Lyon, France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer. The company’s stock, which is listed on London, closed 2.3 percent higher at 45 pence. Zambeef started importing beef products about four years ago, as many of the local bovine livers are deemed unfit for human consumption due to diseases such as liver fluke, Carl Irwin, director of strategy and development, said in an interview today. Imported products accounted for about 4 percent of sales, he said. Zambeef managers and representatives from the health ministry symbolically burnt one metric ton of imported beef at its farm as reporters and employees looked on. To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Hill in Lusaka at [email protected] To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at [email protected]
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 03:23:52 +0000
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