A white powder found in New Zealand in a carton of Sealord canned tuna, which sparked a contamination alert, with suspicion of its being cyanide or anthrax, has turned out to be flour.
The tuna import company Sealord halted deliveries of cartons of canned products to supermarkets last Wednesday and told all supermarkets not to open any more shipping cartons after staff in a Blenheim supermarket discovered the powder in a carton.
"We are continuing an independent investigation to try and find out how and when the flour got into the shipping carton, so that we can take steps to stop this happening again," company secretary Terry Horne said.