NZ PM likely to visit China after botulism scare probe

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Saturday that he is likely to visit China once inquiries into the Fonterra food safety scare have been completed.

Key, who is at the National Party's annual conference in South Island city of Nelson, told reporters there's a high chance he will go to China once he has the findings of an inquiry into how 38 tonnes of whey protein came to be potentially contaminated with a bacteria that could cause botulism.

"I would have to go at a time when I could say here is the inquiry, this is what we learnt and this is what we've done on that," NZ Newswire quoted the prime minister as saying.

"There's no point going today when I just can't give people the answers," he added.

Key said the challenge now for Fonterra and New Zealand is to restore confidence with Chinese consumers, but he is confident the long-term damage of the food safety scare to New Zealand's reputation can be limited.

China is the largest market of New Zealand's dairy products.

Both the New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra and the government were looking into how a dirty pipe at Fonterra's Hautapu dairy factory in Waikato managed to contaminate whey protein in May 2012.