The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has issued an expanded consumer advisory telling consumers to avoid eating any Wonderfarm brand cookie-type biscuit products due to melamine contamination.

Two weeks ago, MDA issued a consumer advisory for Wonderfarm cookies after melamine was found in Wonderfarm's “Successful” variety of cookies. Further MDA testing of Wonderfarm products has detected melamine in three additional Wonderfarm varieties, “Royal Flavour Biscuits”, “Lovely Melody Biscuits” and “Daily Life Biscuits”, prompting MDA to expand its advisory to include all Wonderfarm cookies. Anyone who has purchased any Wonderfarm brand cookie products should discard them.

The cookies were manufactured by Interfood Shareholding Company in Vietnam and are sold under the Wonderfarm brand name. To help consumers identify the Wonderfarm label, color photographs are available on the MDA website at www.mda.state.mn.us.

Tests conducted by the MDA laboratory found several of the cookies had melamine levels that exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) limit of 2.5 parts per million. While exposure to melamine can cause kidney and urinary tract problems, the Minnesota Department of Health has not reported any illnesses associated with consumption of these biscuits.

MDA has alerted FDA to its additional findings and will continue to search for Wonderfarm products that may be sold in other stores around the state.

Melamine is a synthetic chemical with a variety of industrial uses. It does not occur naturally in food, but it has been associated with a number of food recalls linked to products made in China and Southeast Asia.