A dye that is used sometimes to colour meat for burgers and sausages is at the centre of a cancer alert.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced yesterday that it could no longer guarantee a safe daily limit for consumers to eat meat with the colourant, Red 2G, which is also known as E128.

A meeting has been called today by the Food Standards Agency to establish the extent of the use of the dye in Britain. It may also be found in cheap varieties of jam, food industry sources said.

Scientific experts at the European Commission were expected to suspend the use of the dye while they reviewed the opinion provided by the EFSA. A meeting of the EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health was scheduled to be held on Friday next week.

Meat industry experts suggested that the dye was used only by individual butchers and small meat firms, and that these traders may not even be aware that they were doing so. It was likely to be used as part of a mix of spice ingredients for the manufacture of sausages or burgers, rather than bought separately. It was mainly used for meat products sold at the cheaper end of the market and especially where there was less than 100 per cent meat content.

A spokesman for the European Commission said that investigations had found that the dye was used mainly in Britain and the Irish Republic but that the scale was not yet known. He said that its use was limited in the manufacture of breakfast sausages with a minimum cereal content of 6 per cent and for burger meat with nonvegetable or cereal content of 4 per cent.

These technical descriptions were described as a “red herring” by Malcolm Kane, an independent food safety consultant, who said that the terms applied to all sausages and burgers. Mr Kane said that Red 2G was part of the “azo” family of dyes, which were extracted and modified from cold tar and had been linked to cancer for many years.

He called for the dye to be banned. “Red dye is put into meat to make it look good when it is raw. Raw meat oxidises to a browny colour and so a dye makes it look fresher. It is a con trick and a marginally unethical use of colour in foods because it has no function in the final cooked product,” he said.

Mr Kane said that meat traders had argued previously that there was an insufficient supply of natural dyes and that they relied on synthetic ones. “That is no longer true. There are plenty of stabilised grape juices or cherry juices that could be used in these applications,” he said.

The British Meat Processors Association was unable to say how often the dye was used, and the National Association of Meat Traders, which represents independent butchers, was unable to establish how frequently the dye was used in mixes of spice ingredients.

The full scientific opinion from the EFSA has not yet been published, but experts were concerned by the way that Red 2G converted in the body to aniline. In experiments, laboratory rats and mice that were injected with aniline developed cancer tumours.

The scientific panel said that it could not be ruled out that the carcinogenic potential of aniline was due to damage to the genetic material of cells. It was therefore not possible to determine a level of intake for aniline that may be regarded as safe for humans.

It concluded that “based on similar metabolism of aniline in animals and humans, a carcinogenic risk for man cannot therefore be excluded”. The panel withdrew the acceptable daily intake for the dye, which was 0.1mg per kg of a consumer's bodyweight per day.

The EFSA examined use of the dye as part of a general review of additives after the scandal over Sudan I. This cancer-causing dye – normally used to colour solvents, oils, waxes, petrol and shoe polish – is banned from the food chain. In February 2005 it was found in chilli powder that had been used to make Worcester sauce, a common ingredient in ready meals.

Red 2G is banned in:

— Norway

— Sweden

— Finland

— Austria

— US

— Canada

— Japan

— Switzerland

— Australia

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