A major sugar recall is hitting businesses big time - with those who ply their trade with sugar having to dump it in huge quantities.
The first Moustache Milk & Cookie Bar shop opened in 2012. Photo: Luke McPake/The Wireless
The recall was issued after routine testing found low level lead contamination, and affects Chelsea, Pams, and Woolworths-branded raw and brown sugar products sold since October.
The Ministry for Primary Industries said the risk was low.
However, Deanna Yang was expecting to lose more than $50,000 to her cookie business, Moustache, already having to cancel orders and bin stock, equating to thousands of cookies.
She said it was "really devastating" and her "heart dropped" when she found out about the recall.
It prompted her to close her Auckland and online stores abruptly on Friday morning and they would likely remain that way until next week.
"I am a bit concerned. Obviously it's been tough for hospitality during Covid, this loss in sales is really going to imptact us."
Most of the impacted sugar products were general consumer sized - between 500g and 4kg.
But it also included the 25kg bag of Chelsea's soft brown sugar, something her business chewed through and currently had about 30 bags of.
It would take Moustache "a really long time to recover from this", Yang said.
Moustache, Deanna Yang's cookie business, abruptly closed on Friday morning after a major sugar recall. Photo: Luke McPake/The Wireless
They were having to start from scratch and she was dismayed to only find out about the recall through a media report about 11am, despite the advice being published last night, she said.
"In the past, we have actually had a recall for a little bit of chocolate but we were called by MPI immediately and called by other suppliers."
But she was "not sure" why no-one contacted them about this recall "with Chelsea being such a big brand".
New Zealand Sugar - which is Chelsea Sugar - was not available for an interview, but said in a statement it contacted New Zealand Food Safety as soon as a potential problem was identified.
It does not yet know how much sugar will have to get thrown out, what that will cost, or if there would be brown and raw sugar shortages.
It appeared the contamination happened along the supply chain in a bulk ship delivery to New Zealand - the ship previously being used to transport other materials.
The products affected by the sugar recall include three brands. Photo: Supplied / MPI
Ministry for Primary Industries deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said that was not good enough.
"[New Zealand Sugar's] not happy with that either so they'll be doing their investigation."
Arbuckle said it at least confirmed it was "an isolated event".
The lead levels were so low it would only be a concern if someone consumed "the contaminated product over a long period of time", he said.
Arbuckle did not think people should be worrying about symptoms of lead poisoning "at all".
"This is a precautionary thing," he said.
"All producers monitor for lead and other contaminants on a regular basis. If they identify anything, they move quickly."
There were some environmental occurrences of lead but it should never be detectable, Arbuckle said.
Consumers are being told to return contaminated products for a refund.
A list of batch numbers of impacted products is available on the MPI website, with those batch numbers printed on the product packaging.
Refined white sugar was not affected by the recall.
