Sabtu 31 May 2014 16:04 WIB

Indonesia testing Cadbury products after Malaysia halal uproar

Red: Yeyen Rostiyani
An employee shows a box containing Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut and Cadbury Dairy Milk Roast Almond, to be return tomorrow in a shop in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur May 27, 2014.
Foto: Reuters/Samsul Said
An employee shows a box containing Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut and Cadbury Dairy Milk Roast Almond, to be return tomorrow in a shop in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur May 27, 2014.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Indonesian authorities said on Friday they were testing products made by British confectioner Cadbury to check they complied with Islamic standards after two chocolate varieties in neighboring Malaysia were found to be contaminated with pork DNA.

The scandal over the ingredient banned under Islamic dietary laws has sparked outrage among some Muslim groups in Malaysia, who have called for a boycott on all products made by Cadbury and its parent Mondelez International Inc.

Concerns over halal food standards could jeopardize Mondelez's sales in Muslim markets that are larger than Malaysia, such as Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, and the Middle East.

"After such an incident, it is prudent to do a test on the other variants to see if they also have traces of the pig DNA. We may have the result in a few days," Roy Alexander Sparingga, head of Indonesia's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, told Reuters.