Thai cannery's tuna shipments on hold after poisoning scare
A tuna salad similar to the one that made seven people sick near Sydney's Town Hall station.
Canned tuna imported from a Thai factory and suspected of poisoning diners at an inner Sydney café is being tested by food safety experts from the Department of Agriculture.
The department has issued a holding notice on all fish products from the ISA Value Co factory, west of Bangkok, which was linked to last week's scombroid food poisoning incident, News Corp reports.
The holding orders require every consignment of fish products from the factory to be "held in place" for inspection and analysis.
"These products are considered to pose a risk to public health and safety," the notice said.
Seven people were struck down after eating the John Bull tuna product at a café near Sydney's Town Hall train station.
Victorian company FTA Food Solutions, which owns the popular John Bull catering tuna brand, sourced the tuna from the ISA Value Co factory, which is run by Thai seafood giant Sea Value Group.
News Corp said a visit to the factory revealed unlabelled cans sitting in an open warehouse in 34C heat as teams of migrant workers took imported frozen tuna from cold fridges and defrosted it in factory water, then steamed, filleted, canned and labelled the product for Australian supermarket shelves.
One unnamed worker said labelling only occurred when a brand made an order, with tins left unlabelled if orders failed to keep up with supply.
An FTA Food Solutions spokeswoman said ISA Value Co is "an externally audited supplier who meets globally recognised standards used in Australia".
A Sea Value Group spokesman said it had sent their products to labs for testing and will comment on the poisoning incident once they receive the lab results, which could take a week.
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