Angry Bay of Plenty mothers are carefully checking labels on tins of infant formula after news of a milk contamination at Fonterra's Hautapu plant surfaced at the weekend.

Precautionary recall notices were issued on Saturday for Karicare products potentially affected by botulism causing bacteria from whey produced at Fonterra's Waikato plant.

Katikati mother-of-three Shelle Jensen is concerned about the potential contamination of baby formula.

Katikati mother-of-three Shelle Jensen believes Fonterra should have informed people sooner after test results confirmed the contamination on Wednesday.

'They have known about for a while and they haven't told the public … as a parent this does concern me and annoy me because they could have let us know earlier.”

Shelle learned of the milk contamination scare yesterday when viewing Facebook.

'I was on Facebook and saw one my friends [who is a mother] had said something about it, so I Googled it,” says Shelle.

'We checked our tin and ours wasn't one of the contaminated batches which is a big relief and now we have switched to another brand.”

On Saturday, Fonterra announced a dirty pipe at the company's Hautapu plant in the Waikato may have contaminated three batches of a whey protein called WPC80 with Clostridium botulinum.

But media throughout the country are reporting Fonterra knew of the contamination mid-week and infant formulas being recalled remained on supermarket shelves until late Saturday night.

Two batches of Nutricia Karicare formula are being recalled in New Zealand and Fonterra milk products being pulled from shelves around the globe with China stopping all milk powder imports from New Zealand, and Russia banning all goods made by Fonterra.

The Ministry for Primary Industries is advising a food safety issue relating to contamination of some batches of milk whey protein, saying the whey protein contains Clostridium botulinum bacteria that can cause illness.

Shelle, who has been feeding her 10-month-old daughter Olyvia Jensen the Karicare Infant Gold+ Follow On Formula Stage 2 (6-12 months) – which has had batches recalled – for only one month is very relieved to find her tins are not contaminated batches.

'I have used the products to feed my older children, seven-year-old Layla and three-year-old Dylan when they were young but now I have swapped to another brand.”

In her job at Katikati Childcare Centre, Shelle has been hearing of concern of fellow mothers over the contamination of formula – with one mother having a tin of a re-called batch, which only has a few scoops of the product left.

'This mother is fuming about the contamination and has said she would be taking her child to the doctor today.”

The Ministry for Primary Industries announced on Saturday the batches of whey product had been on sold and mixed with other ingredients to form 870 tonnes of consumer products sold in a variety of markets.

'MPI has been advised that in the case of the Nutricia Karicare, five batches of follow-on formula were manufactured using the contaminated whey protein,” says Acting Director General, Scott Gallacher.

'Nutricia has advised that three of those batches are in a warehouse in Auckland, one is on a ship, and the other is in storage in Australia. Nutricia has advised it has locked down those batches, and they will not be sold on the market.

On Sunday MPI said it cannot rule out Nutricia Karicare products as potentially contaminated and recommends they are not fed to children until further notice. They are Nutricia Karicare Infant Formula Stage 1 for babies from birth and Nutricia Karicare Stage 2 Follow-on formula for children from six-months-old.

Mr Gallacher said the Government had advised regulatory authorities in markets where affected product had gone.

'MPI and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade are continuing to work with overseas regulators to provide information as it becomes available. Clearly, a number of markets are very concerned about this situation.”

Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers provincial president Rick Powdrell, and Federated Farmers National board member and Federated Farmers Dairy chairperson Willy Leferink today told SunLive the contamination is currently a food issue that needs to be addressed first before discussing how the incident happened.

'At the moment we believe the facts are still with Fonterra and MPI and we don't want to speculate – at the moment the safety of food is still at stake and we need to have that restored as soon as possible,” says Willy.

He says only once safety of food is restored will Federated Farmers begin asking question as to how the contamination has occurred.

'Once that is finished then we ask the what, how, if questions,” says Willy.

'It's the integrity at stake here of the whole dairy industry.

'Absolutely, we are deeply concerned but at the moment it's not the point to discuss these issues, as we need to mitigate the situation as fast as we can.”

This morning the NZ Herald has reported the New Zealand dollar slumped on concern the contamination scare will hit exports, hitting a month-low of 76.99 US cents.

According to the NZ Herald, worried parents are flooding an infant formula company's hotline, amid revelations almost 68,000 cans of formula could be tainted with a botulism-causing bacterium.

'Karicare products affected were being bought by New Zealanders as late as Saturday night before a precautionary recall notice was issued, angering parents around the country,” says the NZ Herald.

Also NZAgbiz announced that it has initiated a product recall of a small amount of calf milk replacer sold in the North Island, which contains traces of affected whey protein concentrate.

'After a comprehensive inventory assessment we have found that the majority of affected product is still in our stock and that a small amount has been sold to customers in the North Island,” says NZAgbiz general manager Justine Pearce.

'As a result we are acting immediately to recall this product. We have alerted the Ministry for Primary Industries and, where possible, are contacting customers directly,” says Justine.

'We have also sought and received expert advice which has confirmed that the risk to animal health from consuming the feed is low.”

Trade Minister Tim Groser has been reported by the NZ herald as saying it is still unclear how the scandal would affect New Zealand's $13.5billion worth of annual dairy exports. 'The entire world knows about this and different countries are taking different positions.”

Recalled Products

• Karicare Infant Formula Stage 1 (0-6 months) with batch numbers 3169 and 3170 (use by 17.06.2016 and 18.06. 2016)
• Karicare Gold+ Follow On Formula Stage 2 (6-12 months) with batch number D3183 (use by 31.12.2014)

Ancalf calf milk replacer with batch numbers:

• JX24 X6494 to JX24 X6509
• JX26 X6542 to JX26 X6573

Brown Bag calf milk replacer with batch numbers:

• IX21-B0974
• IX21-B0975
• IX21-B0979
• IX21-B0983