Luxembourg's Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Consumer Protection, together with the Ministry of Health, has issued an update on the scandal involving eggs containing Fipronil insecticide.

Yesterday, the Luxembourg authorities confirmed that two batches of eggs on sale at Aldi stores in Luxembourg had been withdrawn from sale and consumers were advised not to eat them. Meanwhile, today, Wednesday 9 August, they further confirmed that Caterman had received from its supplier LODEWIJCKX (Belgium) two batches of liquid eggs containing eggs from a holding that was contaminated.

Some of these lots were returned to the supplier, while some was used to make products at Caterman and Carnesa. The last production at Caterman from these lots took place on 25 July and the consume-by-date of the manufactured products has now passed, so there are no more of this product on the market. At Carnesa these liquid eggs were used to make preparations of minced meat and meat pâté. The minced meat still present has been destroyed, and the meat pates have been blocked for now and are waiting on the results of analyses.

As of 9 August, the Luxembourg authorities have received the results of a routine analysis carried out on eggs taken on 11 July at the Cactus supermarket chain. It appears that eggs with a consume-by-date up to 27 July from the Netherlands (ref 2NL4382501) contain small quantities of fipronil (0.008 mg / kg).

Cactus confirmed that it does not have egg suppliers from the Netherlands. In this particular case, it appears that its usual supplier had to obtain supplies from Holland on an ad hoc basis and delivered them to Cactus. This supplier has no longer had a supply via the Netherlands since early July.

As the specific operation from the Netherlands in question has not yet been identified  to date, Luxembourg has informed the competent authorities via the European Union early warning system (RASFF).

The results of the aove analyses are expected by the end of next week.

For more information on fipronil, see www.security-food.public.lu/index.html; Www.sante.lu; www.ma.public.lu/