BRITAIN’S £5.6 billion dairy industry was facing serious food safety questions yesterday after European officials discovered cheese polluted with antibiotics, dyes and detergents and announced a series of emergency inspections.

The Government was forced to defend its health and safety tests for milk and insisted that dairy products were safe for consumption, but the European Commission gave warning that Britain must change its approach to guarantee hygiene standards.

A row that began as a dispute over sharp practice at a Lancashire cheesemakers escalated during the day to threaten the reputation of the entire dairy industry and raised the spectre of another food scare after the disastrous foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001 and the beef ban over “mad cow” disease.

The Commission threatened to take Britain to the European Court of Justice unless it took “measures to ensure that there is no risk to human health and changed its procedures with regard to what it demands for antibiotic testing in milk”.

But British producers angrily hit back, with Dairy UK declaring: “This is an attack on the competence of the Food Standards Agency.”

The Commission announced that it would inspect a random selection of British milk plants next month after issuing an export ban on Bowland Dairy Products Ltd in Nelson, Lancashire, where it found “raw milk containing antibiotic residues or contaminated with substances such as detergents and dyes” used to make curd cheese.

They Commission said: “Bowland was also using mouldy and contaminated cheese [including “floor waste”] to vacuum-pack for sale.”

A spokesman for the EU’s health and consumer safety department said: “We do not consider that the UK authorities have taken effective action to ensure that this dairy company has come into full compliance with EU health and hygiene rules.”

The spokesman said that Bowland was buying milk that had tested positive for antibiotics, “leaving it for a few days and testing it again”. This meant that the antibiotics had broken down and did not show up in screening tests.

The spokesman added: “We say the risk of allergens is still there and the risk to public health is still there.”

Bowland Dairy Products, which employs 22 workers, has built its reputation over the past eight years on buying milk that others will not touch, either because it has a trace of antibiotics or is tainted in some way. It produces about 2,000 tonnes of curd cheese each year. This requires a further six months or more to turn into a cheddar-type cheese ready for human consumption.

It was unclear yesterday whether the raw material ends up on supermarket shelves in recognised branded products such as pizza toppings but Dairy UK said that it did not. Bowland would not say.

The Food Standards Agency said that the dairy’s products met commonly accepted standards and suggested that the row reflected a difference of scientific opinion over how to interpret results for antibiotics in milk that had spiralled out of control.

A spokesman said: “One of the tests is a screening test for antibiotic residues and if it is positive, the Commission is saying that the milk is technically over the maximum levels. We say the science does not support that.”

The agency said that it had reinspected Bowland after the Commission’s visit and put an end to the practice of “recycling”. EU inspectors returned last month but had not yet shown the report to the agency.Until the inspection on June 9, the company had exported cheese curd to Austria, Denmark, Ireland, France and Germany. Since then, the exports have continued only to the latter two destinations.

The Times understands that the Commission is determined to start legal action against Britain on Thursday.

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