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The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority has been checking on the observance of actions taken on 2001-02-01 and imposed on the company HERBEX CZECHIA, s.r.o., concerning the detected thorn-apple seeds in a product identified as Fennel common - Herbal tea. The company importing this product in the Czech Republic from the Slovak producer HERBEX, s.r.o., was immediately ordered to withdraw the product from the market.

The CAFIA's monitoring confirmed that the importer immediately informed all his customers about the inspection results so that they could stop selling the tea. The importer has contacted his customers on his own and he's been currently gathering the fennel tea in his proper warehouses.

This week (5-8.02.2001), CAFIA verified whether the actions taken on the basis of results of the inspection of the product were observed in customers of the importer HERBEX CZECHIA, s.r.o. The inspection was performed in the known customers of this company; random inspection was performed in part of the retailers. The total of 304 shops were inspected. No fennel tea boxes were found in the market, which would contain the thorn-apple alkaloids. There was only one case when 2 boxes of tea non-complying with the requirements for safety were found in the market. During a week the State Institute for Drug Control distributed the respective information to all pharmacies, so that the product should not be offered here either. In the course of the inspection, CAFIA inspectors prohibited altogether 137 boxes of fennel tea from batches, which were identified as unsafe. All such boxes of products were discovered in warehouses, prepared for being returned to the supplier, and were no more offered to consumers. The inspections proved that retailers had been well informed about the case.

The following batches of fennel tea

• Batch: 40321000
• Batch: 40310800
• Batch: 40310300
• Batch: 40311099
• Batch: 40310600

contained highly toxic alkaloids derived from the ground seeds of thorn-apple detected in fennel tea.

Moreover, in all the specified batches and specifically in batch No.: 40311200, CAFIA identified non-conformances in labelling. The thorn apple alkaloids were not detected in batch No. 40311200, however, the ban imposed on this batch is still in effect due to non-conformances in labelling.

All the CAFIA's actions deal exclusively with the fennel tea of a specific importer. The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority entered into an administrative procedure with the importer.