It issued a recall for the Holy Cow brand “Golden Crunch Vegan Honeycomb” product which was found to have “incorrect labelling”.

According to the Ministry of Primary Industries, the chocolates have caused allergic reactions overseas in people with a milk intolerance.

“It appears milk is present at levels higher than what would be expected as trace level,” MPI said.

He said that in New Zealand the vegan market was not large enough to sustain factories that were “totally free” of animal products, and that contamination was possible in most vegan goods bought in the country.

In 2019, MPI advised of a recall of the I Love Pies brand vegan mince and cheese pies after they contained milk.

The Holy Cow brand chocolates were manufactured in the United Kingdom and imported from Australia.

Creak said despite only a small number of the offending chocolates having been sold, the shop had issued a recall in an abundance of caution to maintain trust with its customers.

“It wasn’t labelled as dairy free, so we don’t strictly have to do a recall. It will be a bit of a pain to contact each of them, but we like to keep our customers in the loop,” he said.

He said that the shop had imported a small batch of the chocolates as a trial, and they had sold out.

The affected chocolates are batch 21309, with a best before date of August 3, 2022.

MPI has said that people with a milk allergy should not consume the product and seek medical advice if they have concerns.