Cadbury Pulls Melamine-Laced Chocolate From China

Cadbury chocolate are displayed for sell at a supermarket in Hong Kong Monday, Sept. 29, 2008....

Cadbury chocolate are displayed for sell at a supermarket in Hong Kong Monday, Sept. 29, 2008. British chocolate maker Cadbury said Monday tests have "cast doubt" on the safety of its Chinese-made products and ordered them recalled, becoming the latest foreign company to be affected by China's tainted milk scandal.

(Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

British candy maker Cadbury announced a recall Monday of chocolate made in its Beijing factory after it was found to contain melamine, the industrial chemical that has sickened tens of thousands of Chinese children.

The 11 recalled items were sold in parts of Asia and the Pacific, the company said in a statement. Cadbury's chocolates sold in the United States were not affected, said a spokesman for Hershey's, Cadbury's sole U.S. distributor.

Meanwhile, Kraft Foods, the maker of Oreo cookies, and Mars, the maker of M&Ms and Snickers candy, questioned the findings of Indonesian tests that identified melamine in samples of their products made in China.

Both Kraft Foods and Mars said they would comply with an Indonesian recall but planned to conduct their own tests and look into the possibility the tainted products were counterfeits.

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Melamine-laced baby formula and other dairy products in China have been blamed for sickening nearly 54,000 children and leading to four infant deaths. The industrial chemical, which is high in nitrogen, is believed to have been added to watered-down milk to mask the resulting protein deficiency and fool quality tests.

Preliminary tests showed melamine in Cadbury chocolates produced at the candy maker's Beijing factory, but it was too early to say how much of the chemical was in them, said a Cadbury spokesman who declined to be identified because of company policy.

Another official reached through the company's London office said there was no way the contaminated chocolate could find its way into other countries because the Chinese factory only supplies Australia, Taiwan, Nauru, Hong Kong and Christmas Island.

"That factory in Beijing only exports to those markets. It's only a small factory," said the official. He said Chinese production makes up only 0.5 percent of Cadbury's global sales, and the recalled items are "less than that because it's only chocolate."

The recalled products included Cadbury Dark Chocette, Cadbury Eclairs, Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate, Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut Chocolate, Cadbury Dairy Milk Cookies Chocolate and Cadbury Hazelnut Praline Chocolate.