Supermarkets recall waffles, cookies in poison eggs scandal

Thirteen supermarket chains affiliated with Superunie quietly recalled waffles and cookies from their shelves on Wednesday because they contain toxic insecticide fipronil, AD reported on Thursday. "We expect more such silent recalls", Wilco Jansen of Emté said to the newspaper. "There are many products with a lot of egg in them. No idea where this is going to end."

Supermarkets invovled include Coop, Deen and Emté. They recalled mini egg wafles and snow waffles of their own brands. Those products contain eggs from one of the some 200 Dutch poultry farm which Barneveld company Chickfriend treated for blood lice using a fipronil containing insecticide, according to the newspaper. The industry calls this a "silent recall", because there is no danger to public health.

On Monday Albert Heijn recalled two types of cookies of the Lotus band from dozens of stores. French supermarkets recalled Dutch waffles last week.

While all contaminated fresh eggs were already recalled from the shelves, supermarkets still have many products that contain contaminated eggs. The federation of the Dutch foodstuffs industry FNLI previously stated that these products are safe to eat, because the fipronil concentration in them is very low. As it is not known how long ChickFriend used the fipronil insecticide, all stocks of egg powder is now also being tested.

Former Justice Minister Winnie Sorgdrager (D66) was appointed to head the committee that will investigate this fipronil scandal, ANP reports. The committee's investigation must reveal how this could have happened and how future scandals can be prevented, Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health and State Secretary Martijn van Dam of Economic Affairs wrote to the Tweede Kamer on Wednesday.

The government officials also revealed that the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA did not receive one, but two reports of fipronil contamination in the poutlry sector. "In one of the two reports, there was talk of potentially large-scale use of fipronil in stables", they wrote. What the other report contained, was not revealed.

Van Dam announced that the poultry sector already suffered around 33 million euros worth of damages due to the contaminated eggs crisis. That amount is expected to only increase.

The agricultural- and food specialists in the Tweede Kamer - the lower house of Dutch parliament - are returning early from their summer break on Thursday to debate the egg crisis with Schippers and Van Dam.