EU Threatens Ban on Italian Mozzarella

By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer

A mozzarella cheese producer holds up a "treccia" (braid) of buffalo mozzarella during a demonstration organized by mozzarella producers to prove the quality of their cheese, outside the Lazio Region offices, in Rome, Thursday, March 27, 2008. EU officials threatened Rome Thursday with a possible Europe-wide ban on mozzarella from Italy's Campania region unless they get more details about production of the cheese, samples of which were found to contain higher-than-permitted levels of dioxins. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

(AP) -- The European Union ordered Italy on Thursday to take "urgent measures" to make sure mozzarella tainted with dioxin does not end up on store shelves, warning that otherwise it would impose an EU-wide ban on the popular cheese.

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