S&P cookies to be FDA tested

 FDA secretarygeneral, Dr Pipat Yingseri said yesterday staff had collected samples of raw material and samples of cookie product and sent them for testing at the Department of Medical Science (DMS)'s laboratory.

The raw material collected includes four samples of wheat flour, two samples of butter, and two samples of powdered milk.

Three of the cookie product samples are from the same lot exported to Germany and include butter cookie, almond cookie, and chocolate chip cookie. Another four samples are cookie milk based products which have been on sale in the country.

Witoon Silaon, vice president of business development at S&P Syndicate said, "S&P will pull all its cookies from its 280 outlets nationwide as a precautionary measure." He said the company had never exported its cookies to Switzerland and questioned where the sample came from. But he said the company would submit samples to Thailand's Food and Drug Administration to determine "whether our cookies are safe for consumption." Witoon said the cookies in question included milk powder imported from Australia and not from China.

 DMS's scientists will take 24 hours to run the test, Pipatsaid, and the results will be known on Thursday morning.

During the past few weeks, FAD has tested 519 milkbased products, including cookies, for contamination. The laboratory results were positive and the products found safe for consumption.