LONDON (CP) - Britain's Food Standards Agency triggered an international alert Friday involving hundreds of products contaminated with a dye linked to cancer that were shipped to Canada and the United States, as well as most of Europe and the Caribbean. The agency said the dye, Sudan I, was in a batch of chilli powder used by Premier Foods to make a Worcestershire sauce. That in turn was used as an ingredient in more than 350 frozen and fresh food products, including pies, sandwiches, sausages, soups and sauces. The agency said it learn of the contamination when Italian authorities inspected a batch exported there by Premier. It said the sauce had been sent to Canada, the United States, France, Greece, Switzerland, Ireland, France, Denmark, Holland, Austria, Cyprus, Belgium, Bermuda, Grenada, the Bahamas and Antigua. Canadian food safety authorities began the task Friday of trying to determine which of the products covered by the recall made it to Canada and where in the distribution chain those products were. Late Friday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned consumers to avoid using Crosse & Blackwell Worcestershire sauce, sold in a 150-ml bottle bearing the bearing the UPC code 0 55000 05564 2. All lot codes starting with L3, L4 and L5 are affected by the alert. The product was distributed nationally, the agency said in a statement, and bottles still on store shelves are being withdrawn by the importer. "'We've received a list of products that could contain the dye and that could have come our way," said agency spokesman Alain Charette. Charette said any other products containing the banned dye that have made it to the retail level in Canada will be recalled. "The moment we have this (information), we share it with the public." A Health Canada official said the dye is considered a suspected carcinogen, having been shown in at least one study to trigger cancer in an animal species. But John Salminen said the risk in this case may be very low. "Normally, colours in products of this type are used at very low levels. And when you consider a product added to another product added to another product as an ingredient and so on, then there is a dilution factor," said Salminen, chief of the division of chemical health hazard assessment. "So we would expect the risk to be low. But we don't have any specific details of use levels or anything of that nature." The British agency used the rapid alert system for food and feed, or RASFF, to send out an alert across Europe and then to North America and elsewhere. "Sudan I could contribute to an increased risk of cancer," said Jon Bell, chief executive of the agency. "At the levels present, the risk is likely to be very small but it is sensible to avoid eating any more." Sudan I is a red dye generally used for colouring oils, waxes, petrol and shoe polish. It is banned from food in Britain and across the European Union. The Food Standards Agency said Sudan I can contribute to an increased risk of cancer, and it is not possible to identify a safe level or to quantify the risk. It added the risk from the levels present in the contaminated foods is likely to be small but stressed consumers should not be exposed unnecessarily. Since July 2003, all chilli powder imported into Britain must be certified to be free of Sudan I and the authorities randomly sample more than 1,000 consignments a year. The agency, which provided a full list of the contaminated products on its website, said people who may have already purchased the products should return them for a full refund. Reprinted from canada.com/health