Pasta On Sale In HK Found To Contain Insects, Hair

The Consumer Council on Monday called on food manufacturers to step up quality control after finding fragments of insects in all of the pre-packed pasta that it tested.

The council said a macaroni product from Nissin Foods contained as many as 548 tiny insect fragments per 225 grams of pasta. Twenty-three of the 35 samples also contained hair, and bits of metal and plastic.

Lui Wing-cheong, vice-chairman of the council's research and testing committee, said consumers do not need to worry as long as they cook the pasta thoroughly.

"Pastas are made with wheat, and it's highly unavoidable that insects get mixed in during planting and harvesting crops... the insect fragments we found this time are very tiny, usually shorter than 1 mm [in length], and can only be seen clearly under a microscope. No studies have shown they are harmful to people," he said.

The council's chief executive Gilly Wong, meanwhile, said pasta producers should do more to ensure their products are sanitary.

"When you buy the wheat, you have to check the quality of the wheat and its hygiene level, especially when we are talking about the insect fragments. You can test it out and have your own quality control mechanism to ensure your raw material is already in a very clean mode," she said.

In response, Nissin Foods said the council's findings should be an isolated case, as they had sent the same batch of the product to a laboratory in the United States and found it contained far fewer foreign particles.

Separately, the council also found that vomitoxins are common in the pasta samples, warning that excessive intake could result in fever, stomachache, diarrhoea and vomiting.

The watchdog said while 23 samples contained the toxin at levels lower than the EU standard, a 3-year-old could ingest up to 80 percent of the maximum daily intake level by eating just half a bowl of pasta.