STOCKHOLM, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Sweden's IKEA said on Tuesday they had started an investigation on the source of bacteria detected in its cakes.
The bacteria that the Chinese authorities detected in the cakes posed no harm to health, which was why it could possibly pass the Swedish quality control, reported the Swedish Television SVT.
"But the bacteria detected in the cakes should not have been there. We are investigating on how the bacteria would end up there," Sara Paulsson, press officer of IKEA, was quoted as saying by SVT.
"We believe that it is just this batch of cakes that were affected. All the products had received quality control against noxious bacteria before they left the factory in Sweden," she added.
The Swedish company Almondy, IKEA's supplier and the producer of the cakes, claimed that none of tests had shown a positive result of harmful bacteria in the cakes when they left the factory.
Some 1,800 cakes that imported from Sweden and would have been sold at IKEA stores in Shanghai of China were destroyed as large amounts of coliform bacteria were detected by the local quarantine bureau.
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