The authority had indicated that it has in receipt of consumer complaints, and in line with best regulatory practices requested Nestle to respond to the complaints and initiate a recall of affected batches.

Mrs Delese Darko, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Authority, in a statement signed and issued yesterday and copied to the Ghanaian Times in Accra outlined some comprehensive regulatory action undertaken to ensure that any safety concerns to consumers were immediately detected and dealt with.

She said a complete Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) inspection of Nestle’s manufacturing facility at Tema to establish the root cause of the coagulation of the evaporated milk had been done.

Mrs Darko also stated that a review of analytical reports, documentation of raw and packaging materials, and product analyses had been done.

The FDA CEO again said “a microbial analysis was conducted on samples taken from the manufacturing facility and complaint samples at the FDA Laboratory. Results from the analysis indicated that there was no microbial contamination of samples and therefore there is no food safety issue with the said coagulated milk products from Nestle.”

She said that analysis confirmed that there was no leaching of dangerous chemicals from the inner (lacquer) lining into the milk product.

Mrs Darko, therefore, noted that the root cause analysis done indicated that the skimmed milk powder (raw material) used to produce the milk complained of has poor heat stability.

“This results in them denaturing of the protein leading to the coagulation of the milk. Denatured protein however poses no health risk,” she added.

She said the Authority was recalling evaporated milk which were manufactured with the affected raw material including“Ideal Milk: 12651489, 12951489, 12961489, 13001489, 13031489, 13131489, 13161489, 13171489, 13341489, and 13351489.”

“Carnation Milk: 12901480, 12911489, 12931489, 12941489, 12951489, 12591489, 12601489, 12611489, 12651489, 13061489, 13071489, 13081489, 13091489, 13101489,” she added.

Mrs Darko revealed that the Authority had retrieved a total of 57,938 cans of the products by Nestle nationwide as at last Sunday.

Charging persons in possession of Ideal and Carnation milk with the batch numbers listed above to return them to Nestle or any FDA offices nationwide, the FDA CEO assured the public that its Industrial Support Department continued to work with Nestle to ensure that the quality defect would not recur.

Mrs Darko also commended consumers for their “alertness and encourage them to continue reporting issues observed with any regulated products for the appropriate regulatory measures to be taken to ensure the health and safety of the public.”