A fats manufacturer supplying the German ready-made farm feed industry knew as early as last March - nine months earlier than previously thought - about elevated dioxin levels in its fat products, dpa quoted a state official as saying on Friday. Harles and Jentzsch, which operates out of Uetersen, north-west of Hamburg, picked up the higher concentrations through tests it paid for at a private laboratory, a spokesman for the state agriculture ministry of Schleswig-Holstein said in Kiel. The state said it had sent the evidence to police. Dioxin was found in some of the fat samples at up to 78 times the legal concentration. ARD television quoted a company official saying Harles and Jentzsch then mixed low-dioxin and high-dioxin fat so that the combination met legal standards. ARD said this was a common industrial practice. Faint traces of dioxin are found in much European farm produce. EU standards ordain that eggs may not be sold if they contain more than 3 parts of dioxin per trillion parts of fat. Dioxins commonly form when food is fried too hot. -- SPA
