For the past two weeks, health alerts follow one another. After the Buitoni pizzas and the hundred tons of Kinder chocolates, it is the turn of six raw milk cheeses sold in supermarkets to be withdrawn from the shelves on Wednesday April 6. They are suspected of containing listeria bacteria. Today, these recalls of food products are worrying, but they have been very frequent for several years.
More than 4,000 products recalled in one year
On the rappel.conso.gouv.fr website, 4,377 non-compliant or dangerous food references have been listed since March 2021. The reasons are multiple: poor labelling, suspicion of pieces of glass, presence of bacteria, etc. These five last years, checks have intensified. Since the salmonella crisis in infant dairy products from the giant Lactalis, the precautionary principle has been applied much more strongly. Companies often “voluntarily” withdraw products from the market to avoid food poisoning. There are still nearly a thousand poisonings and nine deaths in France in 2020.
Regular checks
France prides itself on having “one of the most efficient health security systems in the world”. Each year, the health inspection budget amounts to 335 million euros. In addition to company self-checks, 4,000 inspectors carry out more than 60,000 checks in establishments and more than 30,000 in farms each year. In the event of non-compliance with health rules, operators can be penalized by fines, reports, recalls and destruction or even suspensions of approvals or closures.
Insufficient for associations
But these controls are insufficient for several associations. The NGO Foodwatch denounces the lack of corporate transparencys. She believes that the reactions are too late. The alert for Kinder, for example, was given two days after the United Kingdom, when several British salmonellosis had already been reported.