Tesco withdraws Chinese sweets after milk powder alert

Tesco has withdrawn hundreds of bags of children's sweets from sale over fears that they contain a deadly chemical.

The supermarket recalled White Rabbit Creamy Candies after it was found they contained a substance called melamine that has harmed Chinese babies.

It is the same chemical that has contaminated formula milk in China, causing four babies to die and around 53,000 children to become ill.

The alarm was raised after food testers in Hong Kong and Singapore found traces of melamine in the product.

Although the sweets are made in China they are stocked in branches of Tesco which sell ethnic foods from around the world.

The supermarket said withdrawing the sweets was only a precaution, and nobody was known to have fallen ill after eating them.

A spokesman said: 'As a precautionary measure we have withdrawn White Rabbit Candies from the very small number of UK stores that sell them as part of our ethnic range.'

Melamine is an industrial chemical used in plastics which, if consumed, can cause stomach pain and kidney stones.

The chemical is at the centre of a poisoning scandal in China after it was found to have been added to children's milk to make it appear higher in protein.