Dutch officials are carrying out spot checks on chickens bred for meat over fears that they too have been treated with a toxic insecticide that has forced the recall of millions of eggs across northern Europe.



Scientists are looking for the presence of fipronil. It is a common ingredient in veterinary products for getting rid of lice but is banned from being used on animals destined for human consumption.

Millions of eggs have been recalled from shops and warehouses in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany in recent weeks due to fears of contamination.

On Monday the European commission and the UK’s Food Standards Agency said that they had discovered over the weekend that around 21,000 potentially contaminated eggs had also been imported into the UK. Officials in France, Sweden and Switzerland have also been informed of a risk to consumers.

The FSA said the number of eggs involved represented about 0.0001% of the eggs imported into the UK each year and that there was no need for consumers to be concerned.

According to the World Health Organisation, the toxic substance can damage the liver, thyroid glands and kidneys if ingested in large amounts over time.

Tjitte Mastenbroek, a spokesman for the Dutch food safety agency, the NVWA, said “We are currently testing chicken meat in the poultry farms where eggs were infected to determine whether the meat is contaminated as well.”

If no insecticide is found in the meat, the farms will be cleared to resume sales, Mastenbroek said, calling the tests “a precautionary measure”. The investigations are said to be focusing on “a few dozen” farms that produce both eggs and chicken meat.

The poultry sector claims that there will not be any fipronil found in the chickens bred for meat as they only live for six to eight weeks, which would be too short a time for lice to develop and be a problem for farmers.

Eric Hubers, chairman of the representative body for the Dutch poultry industry, LVO, added: “After eight weeks the stable is cleaned and disinfected with chlorine. You can then eat from the floor.”

Germany’s agriculture minister, Christian Schmidt, said on Tuesday that the contamination of millions of eggs with a potentially harmful insecticide was “criminal”.

Prosecutors in Belgium and the Netherlands have launched investigations, with the focus being on a Dutch retailer of the anti-lice substance, and its Belgian supplier. Questions have also been asked as to how long the Belgian food safety authorities knew of the contamination before they alerted the European commission.