BEIJING, March 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Faced with Greenpeace's charge of genetically-engineering rice, Heinz claimed recently that there is no such ingredient contained in its products.

    Heinz China stated, in an announcement, that no genetically-engineered ingredients have been detected in any of its baby cereal products in the past or recently, when tests were made by authoritative international and independent testing organizations, Beijing News reports.

    These include the batch with a best before date of March 12, 2007, said Donald Gadsden, CEO of Heinz China, who stressed that "there remain no quality problems in Heinz products and we will not recall any of our products."

    Yet Heinz failed to make public the testing reports of its baby rice series.

    Greenpeace said Heinz's self-entrusted testing lacks credibility on a fundamental basis.

    The environmental protection organization said it notified Heinz China of its finding on March 1 and asked for an immediate recall of the product, but the company chose to deal with the incident with an "inexplicit attitude."

    Heinz refused to provide any related information concerning thebaby rice testing, which makes the non-governmental organization believe that even if there exist genetically-engineered (GE) rice ingredients in its products, the company will not announce it to the public, said Greenpeace.

    Gadsden said they have already submitted the testing reports to the relevant government department.

    And the Ministry of Agriculture announced on its website on Wednesday that it is organizing the inspection and testing of related products of Heinz China.

    China introduces a safety evaluation system toward all GE agricultural products, and so far the government has not issued any food safety permits for GE rice products. Enditem