The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (nVWA) says it has found no trace of the E.coli bacterium EHEC in a total of 168 product samples it has tested in the Netherlands over the past few days.
According to the agency, samples were taken from a range of sites across the country, including supermarkets, wholesalers and growers.
The group also confirmed it would continue to carry out further tests until the source of a recent E.coli infection in Germany has been identified.
The nVWA's research has thus far fcoused on cucumbers, prompted by the now erroneous assumption that a strain of E.coli found on three Spanish cucumbers sold in Hamburg was the same one which has so far caused 15 deaths in northern Germany and one in Sweden.
However, the agency has also accepted samples of peppers, aubergines, tomatoes and lettuce provided by the Dutch horticultural board Productschap Tuinbouw, with tests conducted on all of those products leading to a negative result for E.coli.
'You can trust that the probability of contaminated products being from the Netherlands is almost zero,' Productschap Tuinbouw said in a statement.
'The entire Dutch horticulture sector carries out these checks in close cooperation with the Dutch authorities and the nVWA,'
The laboratory run by nVWA is the only one in the Netherlands equipped and licensed to test fresh produce for E.coli.
Meanwhile, vegetable producers in Germany say they have noticed a major decline in sales not only of cucumbers but also other salad vegetables such as tomatoes which are currently ready for harvesting.
Andreas Jende, managing director of Potsdam-based Landesverband Gartenbau Brandenburg, told reporters that some of his group's member growers had seen their sales slump by 'up to 90 per cent'.
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