Food Safety New Zealand has given Chelsea Sugar a stark warning - for making and selling almost one-thousand tonnes of lead-contaminated sugar products

It's been fined almost 150 thousand dollars.

The low-level contamination was in products made from sugar imported on a vessel from Australia, that had earlier shipped a concentrate of lead and zinc.

Food Safety New Zealand says Chelsea Sugar didn't quickly enough inform it about high lead readings.

It says this scale of offending is rare and shows an unacceptable lack of definitive action.