The Italian agroindustrial giant Ferrero, manufacturer of Nutella and Kinder, is accused in a report broadcast Thursday evening on France 2 of having minimized the extent of salmonella contamination in 2022, during a crisis which has caused it to suffer today. now the subject of several legal investigations.
The manufacturer indicated in a press release in April 2022 that the presence of salmonella had been “detected on December 15, 2021” in its large factory in Arlon, in the Belgian Ardennes. A presence attributed “after a thorough investigation” to “a filter at the outlet of the two raw materials tanks”.
According to the program Complément d’investigation broadcast Thursday evening by France 2 and which AFP was able to view, a total of 81 samples from the Belgian factory were found to be positive for salmonella, taken “over a period of production of two months between December 3, 2021 and January 25, 2022”. The program is based on a document notably signed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), published online but gone almost unnoticed.
On April 8, 2022, the Ferrero factory in Arlon closed its doors following a salmonella problem, we take stock one year later
Contacted by AFP on Thursday, the company “intends to emphasize that the quality and safety of its products have always been and will always be at the heart of its concerns”, and that it “rejects all allegations according to which this could have been otherwise “.
In April 2022, the Italian group had to carry out massive withdrawals of products manufactured in Belgium (Kinder Surprise, Kinder Mini Eggs, Kinder Surprise Maxi or Schoko-Bons), after the reporting of dozens of cases of salmonellosis in several European countries. Europe.
Hundreds of contaminations had been recorded in total by European health authorities, particularly among children under 10 years old, with no deaths reported. Salmonellosis causes symptoms similar to those of gastroenteritis, sometimes acute.
Accused in particular by consumer defense associations of having been slow to react, Ferrero is the target of legal investigations in Belgium and France. This is why the company notes to the AFP that “investigations (to which the secrecy of the investigation applies in particular) are underway” and that it “can therefore not make further comments”.
The Arlon production site, closed for several days in mid-2022 before obtaining a definitive green light from the Belgian health authorities in September, had to partially shut down its production again in July 2023 after the discovery of the same bacteria in “walls and plinths”.
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