More rigorous food safety inspections, introduced following a health scare in early 2011, have led to the discovery of more dioxin tainted eggs on another farm in Germany this week.

The poisonous chemical compounds, often created as by-products of industrial processes, were discovered on a farm in North Rhine Westphalia in the North of the country, following similar discoveries on five other farms in the region and neighbouring states last month.

The state’s agriculture ministry announced today that dioxin had been discovered at above permitted levels in eggs on a poultry farm near the town of Borken. Officials said there is no  immediate danger from the eggs, as poisoning would require consumption of contaminated eggs over a period of time. Nevertheless, the farm has been quarantined and eggs sourced from the property have been traced and withdrawn from sale.

As with other cases reported this year, the cause of contamination on the farm remains unknown. Initially authorities had suspected the tainted eggs were caused by contaminated feed, as had happened in January 2011, when Harles and Jentzsch, a feed company based in Schleswig Holstein, caused a health-scare across Europe after producing feed contaminated with dioxin from the by-products of biofuels. The resultant scandal resulted in the closure of over 4,700 pig and poultry farms and the introduction of stricter regulations on animal feed.

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