KOTA KINABALU: The Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism office here has not received any order to remove the Ayamas chicken frankfurters from the market.
Its director, Noor Alam Khan A. Wahid Khan, said Health Minister Dato’ Sri Liow Tiong Lai had released a statement on November 7 to a national paper saying that the product was safe and the Health Ministry would continue to monitor the products.
He added that food safety was under the jurisdiction of the Health Ministry and the Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism office in Sabah could not take action unless there was directive from the Ministry of the Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism itself.
Noor Alam said there was no directive issued by the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism to its Sabah office on this matter.
“If it is not safe, we will get involved,” he said when contacted yesterday.
Supermarket, wet market and grocery shops in Sarawak have removed chicken frankfurters produced by Ayamas Food Corporation from their shelves after news broke that the State Veterinary Authority had detected the prohibited antibiotic ‘chloramphenicol’ in a sample of chicken frankfurter during a random testing recently.
The Health Ministry has taken samples of chicken products for analysis and a report would be prepared by the ministry’s Food Security Division today.
Ayamas Food Corporation Sdn Bhd has clarified that it does not use chloramphenicol or any other banned antibiotics in its products.
Meanwhile, a random survey at a few local supermarkets here yesterday found that some were still selling Ayamas chicken frankfurters while some had taken the product off the shelves.
David Yong, manager of CKS Supermarket at Grand Millennium, said the supermarket had removed the products after reading the report in the newspapers even though no notice had been issued to the supermarket yet.
“Although there have been no directives yet, we took the products off the shelves as a precaution,” he said.
He added that the main distributor of Ayamas products here had reassured that the products were safe, but Yong said it would not make a difference to take them off the shelves for several days.
CKS Supermarket has six outlets in Sabah, which are located at Papar, Sepanggar, Menggatal, Donggongon, Bundusan and Grand Millennium.
An employee of a local supermarket here said the stores were still selling Ayamas products but they would take them off the shelves as soon as they received the notice from the authorities.
As of yesterday, he said there were no directives from the authorities.
“If the authority issues us a notice we will surely take them off the shelves. We have no issue in not selling the products, we will not violate the law,” he pointed out.
On the other hand, a supermarket at Lido was spotted selling Ayamas products at its frozen food section.