A charity organisation which works for homeless people in New Zealand's Auckland has distributed candies filled with potentially lethal doses of methamphetamine in its food parcels.

The charity said a member of the public donated the foods.

In a statement, the charity said: "On Tuesday afternoon the Auckland City Mission – Te Tāpui Atawhai found out that some lollies containing methamphetamine were donated by an unknown member of the public to the Mission for distribution in food parcels. "

"The Rinda brand pineapple lollies were in a sealed retail sized package. The Mission only accepts commercially manufactured food for inclusion in food parcels and the lollies appeared as such when donated," the statement said.

"We received an alert of concern by a food parcel recipient who said they had ‘funny tasting’ lollies.  As a measure of safety, lollies still on site were tested by NZ Drug Foundation. Tests confirmed that the lollies tested contained potentially lethal levels of methamphetamine," the statement further said.

The charity said they have started contacting people who have received the lollies.

"We have also put-up posters on all of our sites and directly contacted our tenants to alert everyone we can of the situation. We will continue to contact people with urgency and utilize our partner networks to ensure wider distribution of appropriate information," it said.

The NZ Drug Foundation warned people not to consume Rinda brand pineapple lollies after a potentially lethal amount of methamphetamine was found in a lolly wrapped in the brand’s packaging.

Drug Foundation Executive Director Sarah Helm says that the lolly contained approximately 3g of methamphetamine.

“A common dose to swallow is between 10-25mg, so this contaminated lolly contained up to 300 doses,” she says.

Police told BBC while the incident could be accidental rather than a targeted operation, they had not drawn any conclusions as it is “a bit early to say”.