The Center for Food Safety of the Hong Kong government Thursday released its Food Safety Report for July, showing that 99.4 percent of the some 4,000 samples tested were found satisfactory.

About 4,400 food samples were tested in July. Of these, about 2, 900 were taken for chemical tests and about 1,300 for microbiological and other tests. A total of 28 samples showed unsatisfactory results.

Samples included milk, milk products and frozen confections; vegetables, fruit and their products; meat, poultry and their products; aquatic products; and cereals, grains and their products.

While microbiological tests cover pathogens and viruses, chemical tests are to detect pesticides, preservatives and metallic contamination.

The breaches included excessive or illegal use of food preservatives, veterinary drug residues, metallic contamination or coloring matters, told a spokesman for the center.

The center has taken follow-up action in respect of the unsatisfactory samples which include tracing the food sources, asking concerned vendors to stop selling and to dispose of the affected food, taking further samples and issuing warning letters.

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2009)