Melamine, the industrial chemical at the center of China’s recent milk scandals, has been found in several non-dairy products from the mainland including eggs, biscuits and instant noodles, which were all on sale overseas. The discovery raises new concerns over the scope of safety problems in China’s food industry.

On October 25, the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety (CFS) said it has found high levels of melamine in eggs imported from northeast China. The eggs, which came from division of the Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group based in Liaoning Province, contained 4.7 parts per million (PPM) of melamine. The legal limit for melamine in Hong Kong is 2.5 PPM.

Hong Kong secretary for food and health York Chow said the island has suspended importation of all suspected eggs.

According to Chow, the discovery has raised concerns about wider contamination in the food chain, and in response CFS will start testing meat and egg samples from the mainland. He also cautioned the industry to pay attention to feed given to poultry and cattle.

Hong Kong consumes about 1.6 billion eggs every year. Sixty percent of those are supplied by the mainland.

But the problem isn’t limited to Hong Kong. The Taibei government announced that melamine has been found in a well-known biscuit produced by Kuai Kuai Co. from Taoyuan County. And a Japanese importer also recalled egg-flavored instant noodles from China's Fuzhou Longfu Food Co. due to discovery of the chemical.

Earlier in September, it was announced that dangerous levels of melamine had been detected in diary products from some of China’s biggest brands. At that time, the Chinese government blamed milk collection stations and diary producers for intentionally adding the chemical to fresh milk to inflate measured protein content. Tens of thousands of babies fell ill after drinking the contaminated milk, and recalls on Chinese dairy products were issued across the world.

However, these recent announcements suggest that September’s scandal was perhaps symptomatic of larger problem, and that dosing food products with melamine may not be limited to China’s dairy industry.

At an October 25 news conference during the Asian-European summit in Beijing, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged to strengthen food safety to meet international standards.