The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new import alert 99-52 on Friday after detecting cesium contamination in multiple shipments of shrimp and cloves from Indonesia.
Effective October 31, the import alert will apply specifically to shrimp and spice products sourced from Java Island and Lampung province in Sumatra. These items will only be permitted into the U.S. market if they are accompanied by official certification issued by the Indonesian government.
“The FDA has made the determination that Cesium-137 (Cs-137) is a known safety risk in certain food from Indonesia and that there is a known safety risk associated with certain regions of origin in Indonesia,” as stated in the Import Alert.
The FDA report indicated several sources of contamination, including the Batan Indah Housing complex in South Tangerang, Banten. It also noted the presence of radioactive dust linked to metal smelting operations.
The FDA has added two Indonesian companies into its red list after confirming their products were contaminated with Cs-137. The companies are PT Natural Java Spice, based in Surabaya, East Java, and PT Bahari Makmur Sejati. As a result, the products will be automatically detained without physical inspection and can only be removed from the list after completing third-party certification audits approved by the FDA.
Furthermore, all shrimp and spice shipments originating from Java and Lampung will be categorized under the yellow list, requiring each consignment to include official certification from Indonesian government bodies authorized by the FDA.
In August, the FDA launched an investigation into Cesium-137 contamination found in frozen shrimp products from PT Bahari Makmur Sejati (BMS Foods). The investigation followed a discovery by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which detected radioactive Cs-137 in containers carrying the shrimp at four U.S. ports: Los Angeles, Houston, Savannah, and Miami.
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