Supermarkets in the Netherlands and Germany moved to halt some egg sales Thursday as hundreds of thousands may have been contaminated by a toxic insecticide in a widening food scandal. Amid fears the Dutch poultry industry could be facing millions of euros in losses, the country's biggest supermarket chain Albert Heijn said it was pulling 14 types of eggs from its shelves.
"All the eggs of these 14 kinds have been sent back to the depot and destroyed," company spokeswoman Els van Dijk told AFP. It was "an unprecedented" situation for Albert Heijn, she added, saying instructions of the Dutch food authority (NVWA) were being followed.
Damage to Dutch poultry farms is already believed to have run into millions of euros, said Hennie de Haan, president of the National Poultry Owners union. The NVWA was due to publish its findings later Thursday having closed 180 poultry farms across The Netherlands this week after traces of the insecticide, fipronil, was first found in samples taken from eggs, droppings and meat in late July.
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