Four more popular varieties of Hong Kong-made soy and oyster sauce have been found to contain high levels of a cancer-causing contaminant.
Testing by health officials in Britain, where Amoy Oyster Sauce has been pulled from shop shelves because of safety concerns, have found other sauces with up to 3,000 times the recommended maximum level of the chemical.
All the products are still on sale in Hong Kong. There is no limit on the amount of the chemical allowed in food here.
Research has shown that large doses of the chemical, 3-MCPD, causes cancer in rats.
The British Joint Food Safety and Standards Group found Amoy Oyster Sauce had almost 30 times the European Union's recommended maximum of 0.01mg per kilogram of food.
But several sauces made by Hong Kong's most popular soy sauce maker, Lee Kum Kee, had even higher levels of the chemical, the group's tests showed.
