More contaminated animal feed from the US has been found by the Department of Agriculture, it emerged yesterday.
Last week the Department announced it had impounded most of a 2,681 tonne shipment of Distillers Solulac Pellets which had been found to contain mammalian bone, not allowed in the animal food chain here.
Yesterday, it said that in the follow-up investigation it had found traces of fishbone in 1,443 tonnes of Distillers Meal unloaded from the same ship.
It had traced 1,223 tonnes of the second load to a compounders and seized it, but some 220 tonnes had already been distributed to five compound feed manufacturers. It said that it had instructed the manufacturers involved to return all unused pellets, not to sell any of the compound feed made from the material and to recall all compound feed containing the pellets from farmers.
The Department, in an update on the original investigation, said some of the contaminated compound feed had already been sold to retailers and some of these had not kept records of the sale of their product to farmers. It urged farmers who had acquired compound feed from a list of compound feed manufacturers to contact the manufacturers involved.