The communication of the group which owns the Buitoni brand, some pizzas of which are the source of contamination by the E. coli bacterium, assures Thursday that “[sa] only priority is to find the cause” of these infections.
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The Nestlé group assures Thursday March 31 that it does not want to take “no risk to consumer health”the group’s communication department told franceinfo, while the first tests carried out in the Nestlé factory in Caudry (North), which produces Buitoni pizzas, some of which have been contaminated by the bacterium Escherichia coli, all came back negative. .
Health authorities had confirmed on Wednesday that some cases of contamination were linked to the consumption of the brand’s Fraich’Up pizzas. In total, there are 75 children infected with the bacteria and presenting haemolytic-uremic syndromes (HUS), including 41 serious cases. This is, according to Public Health France, “the largest epidemic ever described in France”.
“Our only priority is to find the cause of the contamination”, says Pierre-Alexandre Teulié, Nestlé’s general manager of communications. The group recalled the entire range of its product on March 18 and shut down its Caudry site for ten days.
Thus, 75 samples were taken from the entire manufacturing process in the Caudry plant, “from the reception of raw materials to the production lines, taking into account the entire factory environment”, says Pierre-Alexandre Teulié. These samples, sent under the control of a bailiff, all came back negative. But Nestlé is continuing the analyses: “It is a subject of health safety which concerns children. It touches us deeply”, assures Pierre-Alexandre Teulié. A total of 10,000 checks per week are carried out by Buitoni and unannounced checks by the health authorities took place in September 2020 and March 2021.
As photos of a poorly cleaned production line, already published in 2021, resurface, Nestlé says it refuses to comment on “anonymous and undated images” who “do not reflect the state of our factory” and who wear “unsubstantiated accusations”. “Hygiene, health and safety are our absolute priorities”, insists the director general of communication of Nestlé. He adds that it is proceeding to “five hours of deep cleaning of production lines after each production cycle”. “We are doing everything to ensure that the investigation can be completed as soon as possible”would like to add the communication department of the Nestlé group.