Focus on the Hong Kong Recall of Jinlingguan Milk Powder: Revealing the Detection Truth Behind "Bacillus cereus Emetic Toxin"
On May 31, a sampling notice issued by the Centre for Food Safety of the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department once again pushed the microbiological safety of infant formula to the forefront. The notice showed that a batch of "Jinlingguan Zhenhu Platinum Stage 3" infant formula (750 g specification, production date April 23, 2025) was detected with suspected Bacillus cereus heat-stable emetic toxin (Cereulide), and a precautionary recall has been initiated.
This is another food safety warning for the dairy industry following the detection of this toxin in some milk powder brands earlier this year. For dairy manufacturers and testing organizations, dealing with this "invisible assassin" cannot rely solely on monitoring viable cell counts; precise quantitative analysis of the toxin itself is the core key to risk avoidance.
Why Can't Conventional Sterilization Stop Cereulide?
In many people's understanding, pasteurization or spray drying during milk powder production is sufficient to eliminate the vast majority of pathogenic bacteria. However, the difficulty with Bacillus cereus lies in its special survival strategy and metabolic products:
Robust spore protection: Bacillus cereus readily forms spores with extremely strong resistance to heat, dryness, and acidic environments.
The impenetrable emetic toxin (Cereulide): this is a cyclic dodecadepsipeptide synthesized under the control of a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) system. Its molecular structure is exceptionally stable — it can withstand heating at 121°C for 90 minutes without being destroyed, and can also resist degradation by pepsin and trypsin.
This means that, even if all viable bacteria are killed in subsequent processing, as long as the bacterium proliferated in the raw milk or in an earlier production line, the Cereulide toxin already produced will be "perfectly" hidden in the final milk powder product, causing nausea and acute vomiting in those who ingest it, and in severe cases even liver failure. The EU EFSA has also recently specified for the first time a safety threshold for this toxin in infant formula, and global recalls and regulation are fully entering an era of "having standards to follow."
Why Is Detection So Difficult?
The common practice of many companies is to perform microbiological culture and enumeration of Bacillus cereus according to national standard GB 4789.14 and release the product if it passes.
But there is a fatal blind spot here: the culture method can only detect viable bacteria, and is completely ineffective against Cereulide toxin that has already been pre-formed and dissolved into the lipids. Meeting the viable count standard does not mean the toxin is absent.
Truly reliable detection must target the toxin itself. The currently recognized industry gold standard is:
UPLC-MS/MS (ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry) using ¹³C₆-Cereulide as the isotope-labeled internal standard, quantified by stable isotope dilution analysis (SIDA).
Corresponding test standard: T/WSJD 57-2024 Determination of Bacillus cereus emetic toxin in food
CATO Supports Dairy Safety: Bacillus cereus Testing Product Solutions
In response to the dairy and food safety testing needs triggered by this incident, CATO, leveraging its deep expertise in the field of analytical reference standards, provides a complete testing solution covering high-purity emetic toxin reference standards, isotope-labeled internal standards, and standard solutions, assisting testing organizations and dairy enterprise QC laboratories in rapidly establishing a robust quality monitoring line of defense.
For more product information, please contact CATO