Beijing - New Zealand's Fonterra Co-operative Group will buy up shares from a farm it jointly owned with Sanlu Group, the company at the centre of a milk contamination scandal that killed six children in China last year, state media said Tuesday. Fonterra Chairman Henry van der Heyden said Monday that his company, which already owns 85 per cent of the dairy farm , plans to buy the remaining 15 per cent owned by Sanlu, according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The dairy farm, based in Tangshan, Hebei Province, was established in April 2007 with an investment of 144 million yuan (21 million dollars) from Fonterra and Sanlu, Xinhua reported.

Sanlu Group, previously based in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, was a leading seller of milk powder in China until its products were found to contain an industrial chemical, melamine, in September last year.

According to official reports, six children died and more than 300,000 became ill. The scandal saw Chinese-made food products recalled from supermarket shelves around the world.

The core assets of the now bankrupt Sanlu were bought by another dairy producer, Sanyuan Group, in early March. (dpa)