Seasonal Food Surveillance
Lunar New Year Food
Centre for Food Safety
Food and Environmental Hygiene Department
January 2009
1
Background
Before Lunar New Year (LNY), people would buy festive
food to celebrate the holiday. At the same time, they
would be concerned about the safety of the festive food.
As such, the Centre for Food Safety recently conducted
a seasonal surveillance project on Lunar New Year
Food :
to assess the safety of LNY food and
to provide information to consumers for informed choices.
2
Types of food tested
633 food samples collected for testing.
Types of food included:
steamed puddings (e.g. turnip pudding, festive cake)
poon choi
fried dumplings (e.g. sesame balls, crispy triangles)
Chinese sweetened fruits & vegetables
glutinous rice balls
seeds
dried vegetables & dried soybean products
dried aquatic products
Chinese preserved meat
others
3
Types of analysis
Microbiological examinations included
Total bacterial counts, Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens,
Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus aureus and other food poisoning
organisms
Chemical tests included
preservatives (e.g. sulphur dioxide, benzoic acid and
formaldehyde)
colouring matters (e.g. Sudan dyes)
sweeteners
metallic contamination (e.g. cadmium, mercury & arsenic)
pesticides
toxins (e.g. aflatoxin)
others
4
Overall results
Overall satisfactory rate was 99%
All bacteriological test results satisfactory
All samples satisfactory for sweeteners, metallic
contamination, pesticides and toxins
In total 6 samples were unsatisfactory in respect
of preservatives and colouring matters
5
The unsatisfactory samples
6 unsatisfactory samples
Samples
Tests
Results
2 sweetened winter-melon
(糖冬瓜)
Sulphur dioxide (preservative)
2800 - 4700 ppm(1)
1 bamboo fungus (竹笙)
Sulphur dioxide (preservative)
4900 ppm(1)
1 Chinese pork sausage
(臘腸)
Red 2G (colouring matter)
Detected(2)
1 red melon seeds (紅瓜子)
Red 2G (colouring matter)
Detected(2)
1 dried daylily flower (金針)
Sulphur dioxide