3,000 tons of Kinder products have been withdrawn from the market, the boss of Ferrero France evokes “tens of millions of euros” of losses

“Was there a failure? Yes, that’s very clear. Was there negligence? No.” In an interview at Parisian published Thursday, May 26, the general manager France of Ferrero Nicolas Neykov returns for the first time to the health scandal which splashed his company. During this exchange with readers, he reveals that more than 3,000 tons of Kinder products have been withdrawn from the market in total after numerous cases of salmonellosis in Europe, with a “financial impact” of “several tens of millions of euros”.

“According to our investigations”the contamination would come from “of a filter located in a dairy butter vat” from the Arlon plant in Belgium and would have arrived there “either by contaminated raw materials or by people”explains Nicolas Neykov, who speaks for the first time since the start of the health scandal. “How to explain that strict protocols, which have been in operation for seventy-five years, did not work this time? The investigation will have to tell. Whatever the result, we are working hard so that it never happens again.”

In early April, the brand had to recall batches of Kinder chocolate products made in Belgium and sold in several European countries due to suspected salmonella contamination. In mid-April, 150 cases of salmonellosis had been detected in nine European countries including France, mainly in children under ten years old.

Salmonellosis causes symptoms similar to those of sometimes acute gastroenteritis: diarrhea and abdominal cramps, mild fever, even vomiting. No deaths have been reported at this stage.