Food Standards Agency
 Printable version
|
 E-mail this to a friend
|
Mas-River fried dace with salted black beans recall update
Tins of Mas-River branded Fried Dace are being recalled by the UK importer Oriental Merchant (Europe) Ltd, because the product is from an unapproved establishment in Malaysia and high levels of histamine have been found in one batch of tins. High levels of histamine can cause scombrotoxic fish poisoning if eaten.
The Agency has issued a Food Alert for Action asking all authorities that may have distributors or retailers of this product in their areas to take action. The Food Alert for Action updates the Product Recall Information Notice issued on 19 January 2011, which can be found via the links below.
Images of the product can also be found at the links below.
Product details
All tins of the product are being recalled:
- Mas-River Fried Dace with Salted Black Beans, 184g
- All date and batch codes
Actions to be taken by local authorities
As the affected product is from an unapproved establishment and may be a possible risk to people's health. Local authorities are asked to contact distributors in their area to make sure the product is withdrawn from sale and recalled from consumers. Food business operators should also be encouraged to issue point-of-sale notices that explain why the product has been recalled from consumers.
The science behind the story
Scombrotoxic fish poisoning is linked to eating fish from the family that includes tuna, mackerel, and herring. It is caused when fish and fish products are not refrigerated correctly. Warmer temperatures allow bacteria to multiply and produce a chemical called histamine at levels that can make people ill if it’s eaten. Cooking the fish will not destroy histamine.
Symptoms are similar to those of an allergic reaction; they include skin rash, low blood pressure, vomiting and diarrhoea. Symptoms also include headaches, dizziness, palpitations, and abdominal cramps. Symptoms can occur as quickly as 10 minutes after eating the affected fish and may be serious enough to require urgent medical attention, although they usually resolve within 24 hours.
About product withdrawals and recalls
If there is a problem with a food product that means it should not be sold, then it might be 'withdrawn' (taken off the shelves) or 'recalled' (when customers are asked to return the product). The Food Standards Agency issues Product Withdrawal Information Notices and Product Recall Information Notices to let consumers and local authorities know about problems associated with food. In some cases, a ‘Food Alert for Action’ is issued. This provides local authorities with details of specific action to be taken on behalf of consumers.
You can get FSA alerts about product recall and withdrawals either by email or SMS text. Visit the Get Alerts page at the link towards the bottom of this page to find out how.
You can also subscribe to our Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed for food and allergy alerts. RSS is a format for distributing news content and is a simple way to keep up to date with the latest news on a website.
When we publish via RSS, you can automatically get the updated content via a 'news aggregator' or 'news reader'. Our RSS feed will contain a brief summary and link back to our web content. Click on 'What is RSS' on the left of this page for more details.
