Consumers warned to throw out Nanna’s Frozen Berry 1kg packets amid hepatitis A scare
http://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/consumers-warned-to…
Had a pack of Nanna's Blueberries in the freezer. Seems to affect only the mixed berries but not taking a chance!
Hepatitis A is spread when traces of faecal matter containing the virus contaminate hands, objects, water or food and is then taken in by mouth.
this can affect organic produce as well
Even worse when its used as fertilizer!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-01/how-the-ch…
Hepatitis A is completely harmless. Makes you feel crap though.
@Jesmond: Maybe but who wants to eat Berries contaminated by crap! the whole point of eating berries is usually for the health benefits, or am I missing something?
You are right. I just thought that organic produce may be grown and packed in a more strict environment. Just wishful thinking.
https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/Organic/fecal-… suggests that organic produce might have higher rates of contamination :)
in any case, i think that, for normal healthy people, the benifits from consuming lots of fruit & veggies daily outweighs any potential risks associated with contamination, pesticide residues etc
More like stupid ill-informed thinking. It's this type of thinking that makes people assume that "natural" must be better (i.e. better than real medicine) and "organic" must be better still.
Well, its pretty obvious that the matter came from the Chinese raspberries that were in the mixed berries.
if you buy aus, you far less likely to have these sorts of things happen
Oliver
Yeah. stupid ill-informed thinking. You are so nice.
For some, natural is better than, what you call, real medicine.
@Oliver: yes arsenic, uranium, salt(a poison if enough taken)& crude oil, are all naturally occurring. The word natural is such a con in marketing.
Also word organic is a bit of a con as well.
Organic fertilizer ? Manure from cows, horses, chickens, humans ?
Maybe these Chinese berries were grown with human manure & not washed properly.
water is also toxic if taken in extreme quantities. everything has a toxicity. oxygen is also gradually killing you as you read this.
"natural is always better" is a fallacy
The natural stuff that works gets studied, understood, refined, enhanced and then becomes real medicine.
oops double post.
I just read that it's not just feces but "infected feces" that do it.
why would an organic farm have infected feces involved?
Not every country uses toilet paper. Some use their left hand.
I bet they use feces (instead of all the nasty chemicals) to fertilize the organics. :)
had an unopened packet in the freezer - straight into the bin it goes
don't chuck it - take it back for a full refund. no need for a receipt
Same
we have the blueberries too but we've opened and eaten them. not chucking them - labelling them as do not eat and keeping for 2 months until sure we don't have hep a. if we do they are evidence.
Good idea!
i've been eating berries everyday for years (mostly coles, some nanas). i've had blood tests recently and my liver enzymes were normal.
@mattgal: "…it is difficult to find Hepatitis A virus, even in a contaminated batch." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-14/frozen-berries-recalle…
I have Coles brand frozen blueberries, says they're from Chile. I'm guessing the Hep A was from China so I'm eating my berries.
I read some where that berries from both China and Chile were processed in the same facility in China, where the virus came from (contaminated water)
Well thats pretty shit if its true
"The particular risk that we've identified here is that a country that has endemic hepatitis A, that is China, has been involved with packing these berries, sourced from both Chile and China," Dr Romanes said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-16/poor-hygiene-chinese-w…
Actually, mine are from Woolworths. I just checked the packet, they say:
"Product of Chile, Packed for Woolworths", then a NSW address.
Is it really possible they have been processed in China? If so, that's a f***king disgrace. How is it legal that China is not mentioned on the packet? I have fed these berries to my baby.
yup
@nasotrang:
The product recall is for patties berries namely their Nanna's and Creative Gourmet brand. Cole's and Woolies haven't issued product recall notices (I don't even know who does their berries).
@nasotrang: 'Product of' requires that everything is done in that country, so if correctly labelled, I don't think any packing would have been done in China.
@nasotrang: Is the risk of contracting Hep A really worth eating a $5 pack of frozen berries? I'd throw them all out.
I am still eating my blueberries but won't give them to my family. I'm washing them first with cold water I'm not too worried because I received the Hep A vaccine a few years ago.
@Possumbly: Sorry for the late reply, but https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/groceries/country-of-origi…
how cheap were they?
hmmm, i'll have to dig through my freezer and see if i've got any old packs i can return. i think i've only got blueberries
Complain to Food Standards Australia, the people who are supposedly looking after consumers. [email protected]
theyll already be aware
Not the point Davo as you'll see if you read further.
Doesn't matter. They don't care. Otherwise they would've closed the loop hole, where chinese foods can be sent to NZ, then repackaged by mixing them with NZ stock, and sent to Australia
http://ausveg.com.au/media-release/horticulture-new-zealand-…
http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/2377117/push-for-food-la…
Under our trans-tasman agreement, if it can be sold in NZ, it can be sold here… EVEN if the product cannot be imported directly into Australia from say China.
Most of the world knows we (rightly) have batshit crazy quarantine laws… are NZ's up to the same level if they're repacking stuff up and selling it here? I can't remember, but i'm pretty sure under the trans-tasman agreement, NZ<>Aus quarantine is much easier.
Not just fruits, plenty of frozen seafood imported from overseas, they're usually unrealistically cheap but I wouldn't touch them. Trouble is packaging usually says "packed in Oz from local and imported ingredients". Best to stick to local market produce.
Whenever I see the label "Made from local and imported ingredients", say in this case of the mixed berries, I have this image of them dropping a single Aussie strawberry into a massive vat of imported berries then checking it off as satisfying the criteria…then onto the next vat…lol…I wonder what the ratios really are.
Does the air inside the packaging count as an ingredient? ;)
Made from local and imported ingredients
If Local comes before Imported, it means there are 51 Local berries to 49 imported.
Made from Imported and local ingredients
If Imported comes before local, it means there are 99 Imported berries to 1 Local.
Does it really work like that? If it says local and imported does that mean there has to be more local than imported ingredients? I always assumed local and imported meant it could be 99 imported to 1 local type scenario.
@Evil-Elmo: yes.
I asked the Australian made, group about this, salted peanuts, with imported and local ingredients.
Peanuts were from overseas, salt local.
Whatever comes first is more than 50%
Well that's a very clear and precise way of notifying the consumer about the origin of the food they're purchasing.
While they're at it, why not have a riddle on the nutritional information table that will tell you the ratio of local to imported once you calculate the velocity of a particle moving along an x-axis at position x where the relationship between x and t is given by: tx = x^2 + 8, so at x = 2, what is the velocity of the particle?
@dealman: Not necessarily more than 50% in all cases. Whatever is listed on the label first is the largest quantity, followed by the second largest… It could be 20% + 15% + 10% + 8% … up to 100%.
Don't be surprised. Manufacturers lobby most customer disclosure to be as complicated as possible.
The nutritional standards is another good example. Common sense says you put measurements of things like sugar in teaspoons and include an overall amount of each ingredient. Instead we get per 100 grams and per an arbitrary serving size which may have no relation to reality.
A more hilariously flagrant application I've only seen in the US is making the 'tear tab to open' the nutritional information.
@RedSky:
I agree the serving size is arbitrary, but the per 100g is very helpful and makes comparing products relatively easy.
I agree, I use it all the time. Would have liked to see the new star rating system be mandatory, or better yet the traffic light system (prior version the industry killed), which gave a simple rating for calories, sugar, fat, not just an overall star rating like now. Realistically, most people don't compare the numbers and it would have been far more beneficial.
Although only the Nannas berries have been recalled, I wonder if this affects other brands of frozen berries as well? I know Coles frozen berries are also sourced from Chile and China and it wouldn't surprise me if they were packed and whitelabelled in the same facility as the Nannas berries.
yeah, that did cross my mind
I have the creative gourmet brand that I bought a few months ago. Of course the packet just lists "imported ingredients" and nothing else.
That's exactly what I complained about to FSA. Consumers deserve to know exactly where all and any content is produced, not just where it's packed and some totally meaningless/useless statement like "imported ingredients", especially with so called Free Trade Agreements in such prevalence. It's been the case for quite a while that China has been sneaking products in to Australia via the backdoor - our pals across the ditch. If you don't complain "authorities" will simply sit back in their complacency until the sh!te hits the fan, at which time they'll just try and cover their arses. People contracting Hep A from these products ought to consider a class action against the supplier AND the responsible govt body.
It is rather dodgy. As far as I am concerned if you wish to conceal something as trivial as country of origin you have something to hide. As a consumer I should be able to choose where my produce comes from. I might be completely fine with buying stuff from China, but I should be given the choice.
As an update, I think these creative gourmet brands are also tainted:
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls…
I have 2 boxes of these in my freezer that I was considering using oner the last week but never got around to it. Thank goodness I got too lazy to use them. Someone is going to return them tomorrow. I take it no receipt is necessary because this is a recall?
Yep, the recall has been widened to include Creative Gourmet ones.
This is why you don't buy crap berries from China (which are incidentally covered in crap). The same goes for NZ where they import Chinese food and re-label it and ship it off to us suckers.
What do you get from NZ that is relabelled Chinese food?!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-19/foreign-produce-labels…
iirc birds eye frozen vegetables used to do that.
Thanks, that's pretty disappointing. Thankfully the NZ peas we buy only mention NZ and not imported ingredients. Still, makes you wonder. I really hate the whole 'imported ingredients' thing without saying which ones or where from.
As per many of the comments here, in most cases you won't know due to slack regulations. The NZ-China FTA opened the door to Chinese products landing here without proper acknowledgement. http://ausveg.com.au/media-release/horticulture-new-zealand-…
How typical it is to blame safety disaster on imported food :P
Old news regarding Costoc recalling their product and people forget after few weeks.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/05/hepatitis-a-illnesses-…
The laws need to be changed so that food companies have to state on their packaging the country of origin of the food contents in that packaging. Not where its packed or that its from imported ingredients. How on earth are consumers meant to make informed decisions if we don't know where the food comes from?
Yes, but instead of writing that here why not put it into an email to [email protected]. They won't act on a few complaints but if they get enough they'll have to respond.
and vote with your money in the mean time by only buying local produce and/or products that have explicit country of origin labelling.
Personally I only buy fresh Aussie blueberries (and sometimes raspberries) and freeze them myself so they keep longer. Yes they're a crapload more expensive than buying bulk frozen imported berries, but they're a lot tastier IMO and more importantly, I know it's supporting local farmers, which is something I personally value.
China can keep their fruit and veg kthnx :P
Not that I like it, but labelling produce simply as "imported" is almost the best that can be done because the country of import is not necessarily where the produce was sourced from, as it may have already been imported before being repacked / resold.
For "imported from X" to work, you would have to put a lot more trust in the food regulation of these countries. And if we trusted food regulation from these countries, we wouldn't be having this conversation!
Far from it. Regulation can simply insist that all food products must have listed on them the source of the base products as well as the country of production (not just packing). It's then up to the companies selling the product to make sure they know the provenance and trust the production systems/QC. Same thing as in the beef substitution rackets in Europe.
The argument invariably revolves around the cost of compliance. Always overstated, with nary a word about the cost of not doing the right thing. I'm reminded of the case in the USA (not food related) where the company rationalised that if they wwere caught the cost of paying out for a few deaths and disabilities would be far less than their savings from doing nothing (risk/reward trade off). Fortunately for the public they were eventually found out and hit with massive damages.
There's a balance to be achieved and currently our labelling laws are a long way from that position. Statistically authorities can claim the problem is not worth the input costs - never is until the sh!t hits the fan.
An example of this in the US is the Ford Pinto. The legal costs estimated to be incurred in defending against those likely to be burned or killed by ruptured Pinto fuel tanks (in rear end crashes) of $36 million was less than the estimated engineering expense of $121 million (and 6 months of time out of the market to re-engineer). The fuel tank could be ruptured by a rear impact lower than 20 mph and fuel was simultaneously ejected into the cabin causes burns to occupants / explosions / death. Ford decided that the cost of $11 per vehicle was too great.
we'd like to always buy au but it is not always practical or affordable
for sure better labelling would be very helpful - remember when socks always said % cotton etc
fwiw i was eating creative gourmet (did wash them 1st) berries uncooked a few days ago so either have hepA immunity or not every pkt is infected.
i read that basa (imported fish) has so much antibiotics that if you get golden staph the std cocktail of (hospital) antibiotics will likely be much less effective
again poor labelling
Takes 15 to 30 days to get symptoms of hepA.
i read that basa (imported fish) has so much antibiotics
Huh? Why would they have antibiotics, did they get the flu or something? Pesticides or disinfectant or higher metal levels from pollutants is believable, but antibiotics on cheap fish?
Google is your friend. The (over)use of antibiotics in farmed fish particularly in Asia is well known. On second thoughts, don't google, you'll be shocked and dismayed.
This 2005 study from Foodstandards found that some samples of Australian fish had the highest antibacterial residue, even higher than Basa from Vietnam http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/publications/pages/surveyofc…
Hopefully Australian producers have cleaned up their act since then…
The recalls cover Nanna’s Mixed Berries, 1kg plastic bag
All Batches up to and including Best Before 22/11/16
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls…
and Creative Gourmet Mixed Berries, 300g and 500g plastic bag (also been available in a cardboard box)
Date marking
300g, All Batches up to and including Best Before 10 12 17
500g, All Batches up to and including Best Before 06 10 17
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls…
But check for further updates here
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls…
Now my tuppence worth…
The recalls say "Consumers should not eat this product and should return it to the place of purchase for a full refund."
So we are supposed to take shit-ridden Hepatitis A-contaminated product back to food stores? Really? Aren't there laws against doing things like that?
it's crawling all over your packets and breeding in your freezer. burn the fridge, burn it now!!!!! :)
unfortunately i've stripped all the cardboard boxes to pack the bags more efficiently in my chest freezer. i remember getting some creative packs substituted in a woolies order. possibly i've already consumed them, possibly they are still in there …
The recall has been extended to
Nanna's Raspberries, 1kg plastic bag
All Batches up to and including Best Before 22/11/16
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls…
Continue checking for further updates here
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/foodrecalls/recalls…
Just wondering if I chucked out the receipt would they still accept it?
I got a full refund at Coles, without receipt, for 2 packets of Creative Gourmet Mixed Berries 300g. One was already nearly finished (crossing my fingers that i didn't catch anything) and the other was still sealed. They couldn't scan it on their system, so took them a while for the manager to provide an estimated price for the refund.
i've returned some recalled fish before and woolworths refunded the full price without a receipt.
Woolworths is refunding them without receipts, and some stores are allowing change-of-mind refunds on other non-recalled berry brands as well.
Unfortunately berries are the most susceptible to bad farming practices as you eat the skin and you can't wash them (effectively).
I find it annoying how you can't buy Australian frozen fruit. The only Australian frozen fruit I can find in Coles or Woolworths is the Coles Australian Blueberries, the rest imported. Even the NZ Organic one says that they import when the fruit isn't in season/unavailable.
Crazy to think we have to import things like mangos and pineapple. I ended up freezing my own mangos when they were cheap.
"I find it annoying how you can't buy Australian frozen fruit. The only Australian frozen fruit I can find in Coles or Woolworths is the Coles Australian Blueberries".
These two sentences contradict each other.
You're quite right, what I meant was "you can't buy a range of Australian frozen fruit".
Working in the fruit market for a while in my youth, I've always noticed that berries in Australia were regularly selling for $40 per kg, and wondered how we buy frozen berries for less than $10.
Australian produce is expensive, due to our wages (lbiggest cost is in picking the stuff).
So don't be annoyed, unless u are happy to fork out $40kg for frozen berries.
I get your point (and berries would be the worst as you say, they are very labour intensive), that said I think the Coles Australian blueberries are only 40%(?) more than their imported ones.
It shouldn't really apply to larger fruits such as pineapples and mangos.
With frozen goods part of what you are paying for is water, it also should be significantly cheaper as there are less middle men in the fruit and veg distribution chain and little/no spoilage due to less transport and fruit going to waste. My point with he mangoes was that I as a consumer was able to buy fresh mangos and freeze them at a lower cost per kg than the ones that are imported.
I was interested in the symptoms of Hepatitis A. Thought that others may want to know.
Got this from http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pag…
Symptoms of hepatitis A
You can fall ill any time between 15 and 50 days after catching the virus. The average incubation period for the virus is 28 days. Many infected people, particularly children less than five years old, show few or no symptoms.
For older children and adults, the symptoms include:
fever
nausea
abdominal discomfort
dark urine
yellow skin and eyes (jaundice).
Symptoms may last for several weeks but full recovery usually occurs.
sounds like you will know if you have caught it and blood tests would confirm.
I agree.
It is good to know that:
I have been eating frozen berries for probably 7 years now without any ill effects. Mine come from Chile instead of China as there's a feeling of uneasiness about the safety of Chinese grown food products. Ask Chinese people living in China and they're expressing the same opinions. It's why Australian fresh milk sells for up to $7/L in Shanghai and there's a market for it. When relatives traveled to China in 2010 the contacts over there didn't request bottles of wine or kitsch as gifts: they wanted bags of Australian milk powder.
is not just China berries, it is from chile too.
"…The berries came from China and Chile and were packed at Patties Foods, which is based at Bairnsdale."
Source : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-14/frozen-berries-recalle…
The source of the contamination is currently suspected as being from China, but since the mixed berry product contains berries from both China and Chile then Chile is mentioned too.
It would be unfair to single out China as the only place where these problems occur however. Here's another contaminated berry outbreak: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/hepatit… These products were from the USA, Argentina, China and Turkey.
When buying frozen berry products a huge amount of trust is placed in the producer as the product is often eaten raw. There is no opportunity to kill bacteria or viruses.
The way the berries are cleaned and packed, and the quality of the water used to wash them all has to be very high. Unfortunately a company in Australia probably can't maintain a constant watch over what happens in China or Chile.
Hepatitis-A is a common illness in countries with poor water sanitation. I have been vaccinated for HepA because of a trip to India for example.
So what you are saying its the producers responsibility to wash them.. An the Onus is not on the consumer who doesn't need to wash any raw foods before putting it into their own mouths.
My mum has a freezer half full of the creative gourmet mixed berries but is uncontactable in Papua New Guinea. So question is - as an oz bargainer she would have bought them on special - where is the best place to return them to for the best refund coles or woolworths - I have no clue where the receipt would be and she shops at both for the best specials.
I also have an out of date bag (bb oct 2014) which is almost empty can I return it at the same time?
So sad. We try to eat healthy and then this happens. Will have to go organic berries.