A BOLTON firm is at the centre of a major health scare after the discovery of "contaminated" packets of almond powder - which could prove fatal.

Environmental health officers are warning that almond powder distributed to wholesalers by Derby Mills based Amrit Trading Company has been mixed with peanut powder.

Health officials now fear that people who have an intolerance to peanuts may unknowingly eat food containing the contaminated powder and suffer severe allergic reaction. Peanut allergy has even been known to lead to death for sufferers in recent well publicised cases.

The almond powder is mostly used by Asian restaurants and take-aways to thicken curries, Asian sweets and marzipan.

The Department of Health has issued food hazard warnings to the Bolton, Leicester, Bradford and Nottinghamshire areas where the powder was distributed to wholesalers. The Amrit Trading Company at the centre of the scare buys the powder in bulk and packages it up to be sold by wholesalers. The almonds are imported by a firm in Dudley which grinds them down to powder and then a firm in Birmingham sells the powder on.

Bolton environmental health officials have launched a major investigation in an attempt toestablish how the peanuts got in the almond powder. In some cases half of the powder in the packets was peanuts.

Principal environmental health officer John Baines warned that if they can prove who adulterated the almond powder and that it was done deliberately for profit then they will consider prosecuting.

"Our main concern though is to find that there is none of this product on shelves," said Mr Baines.

The problem came to light several days ago when Nottingham trading standards officers found a packet of ATC almond powder contained 30pc peanuts.

They alerted colleagues in Bolton who analysed packets of almond powder on Amrit's shelves and found they contained over 50pc peanuts. The contaminated packets are 800g and 300g sizes marked "best before Dec 1997" and one kilo and two kilo packs marked "best before June 1997". All packets bear the ATC name.

Amrit Trading Company declined to comment.

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