"Taranaki will be hit the hardest" - Fonterra

BREAKING NEWS: Fonterra has confirmed to infonews.co.nz that the Taranaki economy will be hit by the baby powder crisis the hardest.

No-one has fallen ill after consuming contaminated Fonterra dairy products and the dairy giant acted swiftly when it learned about it, chief executive Theo Spierings says.

"There has not been one child ill across the world. There have been zero customer complaints," he told an Auckland press conference early this evening from Beijing.

The contamination affected 38 tonnes of a type of whey protein concentrate Fonterra in May last year produced had been contaminated with the bacteria that can cause botulism.

Spierings said he had offered a "deep apology" over the whey scare to China, where some of the concentrate had ended up. His apology had also been offered to the Chinese media.

"Human errors in life do happen," Spierings said.

The scare had severe consequence that Fonterra was trying to manage.

"I have expressed our strong commitment to China."

Spierings said he would remain in China until the issue was resolved.

He had given Chinese authorities a full technical report this morning on what had happened.

They would hold further talks tomorrow.

He had been pressured on the time scale and said there were hundreds of strains of bacteria. Most of were not toxic.

This was explained to the satisfaction of the Chinese.

Director of Fonterra's New Zealand Milk Products division Gary Romano told the press conference there was no indication in March this year that the product was unsafe.

"We did not know until 31st of July [Wednesday last week] that we have an unsafe product."

Once they knew they acted with speed.

Three contaminated batches were sold to eight companies, and some of it was used to make infant formula and sports drinks.

Parents in New Zealand and China have worried their children are at risk of being infected with botulism, which paralyses muscles and can kill.

"We regret the distress and anxiety which this issue could have caused,'' Spierings told reporters.

MASSIVE HIT ON ECONOMY

BREAKING NEWS: Taranaki will be hit the hardest by this scare because "Taranaki is heavily involved in the dairy indistry, Taranaki brings almost half of the dairy income" 

Already today the NZX 50 fell by .2 cents because of the Fonterra scare.

"This will be worse then the Christchurch earthquakes economically wise"