Secretary for Food & Health Dr York Chow said the Centre for Food Safety has not yet found "One Drop of Incense", a hot-pot flavouring agent, available for sale or being used in food locally.
Dr Chow said in the Legislative Council today the centre collected 10 samples of hot-pot soup base from local restaurants in December for chemical tests, covering metallic contamination, colouring matters, preservatives and antioxidants. The results were satisfactory.
The centre will continue to monitor the situation and carry out testing of hot-pot soup products. It collected another 50 hot-pot soup base samples for testing this month. Results are pending.
Dr Chow said the centre enacted subsidiary legislation focusing on certain specified food additives with reference to the risk-assessment findings and the regulatory systems of overseas authorities. He said the regulations require prepackaged food for sale in Hong Kong to include a list of ingredients when the food was packaged. If food additives are used in food the specific names or identification numbers of these food additives and their functional classes should also be listed.
