Italy ordered a recall on Friday of mozzarella cheese potentially contaminated with cancer-causing dioxin, as a widening health scare tainted the reputation of one of the country's best-known culinary products.

 

News of the recall came moments after France joined a small group of nations to halt sales of some types of mozzarella over the scare. Japan and South Korea had already stopped imports.

 

The European Commission had warned Italy on Thursday that it needed to take more urgent action or risk a trade ban.

 

In Italy, Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema played down the health risks even as he announced a recall affecting an industry worth about €300 million (Dh1.743bn) a year, which employs 20,000 people.

 

"This is a limited phenomenon and once the (recall) measures are completed, we're convinced that we can restore confidence in the quality of a product that remains a symbol of Italian gastronomy," he said.

 

Italy's health ministry said it was withdrawing products from 25 companies in Campania region, where Italy's best buffalo mozzarella is produced.

 

In Brussels, the European Commission said Italy had also pledged to carry out "constant monitoring" of production sites to ensure no further cases of mozzarella cheese were found with dioxin levels exceeding the EU's maximum permitted levels.

           

GARBAGE CRISIS

 

Italian health officials believe the dioxin is linked to a recent garbage crisis in Naples and the surrounding Campania region.

 

With dumps in the area full, locals burned piles of rubbish in the streets and in open fields. Health officials say industrial waste was also set ablaze, spreading fumes that in some cases contained dioxin, a toxic chemical.

 

Italy produces about 33,000 tonnes of buffalo mozzarella a year, with 16 per cent of it sold abroad, mostly in the European Union. France and Germany are the major importers but mozzarella sales have been expanding to other countries, including Japan and Russia.

 

France ordered its shops on Friday to stop selling all mozzarella cheese from Italy's Campania region, saying it was "as a precautionary measure" pending further tests.

 

Italy's biggest farmers' group Coldiretti criticised the French ban, saying the health scare was based on emotion, not science.

 

"France's reaction is emotional. It follows the wave of emotional reactions in Japan and Korea," said Rolando Manfredini, food safety expert at Coldiretti. (Reuters)