May 9 - The Food Standards Agency has today written to organisations representing suppliers and importers of cooking oils, to alert them to the presence in the UK of sunflower oil containing significant levels of mineral oil. The sunflower oil originated in Ukraine.
The European Food Safety Authority has undertaken a risk assessment of the oil and concluded that, on the limited information available, consumption of the contaminated sunflower oil is not expected to be of concern to public health. However, as the contamination breaches European Union (EU) law, the Agency is asking companies that have imported the product to withdraw it.
Investigations by the European Commission and the Food Standards Agency at the time of the initial EU alert in April 2008 confirmed that none of the affected batch of sunflower oil from Ukraine had been distributed in the UK. However, the Agency has now been informed that some products have since been distributed to the UK via other EU Member States.
The Agency is investigating how much of the affected product might have been sold in the UK and will update consumers when it has further information.