The Ferrero site in Arlon in Belgium, already hit last year by salmonella contamination of its Kinder chocolates, had to put its production partially on hold after the discovery of the same bacterium at the end of June in “walls and baseboards from the plant, the company said Thursday.
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Asked by AFP, Laurence Evrard, Benelux spokesperson for this Italian agri-food giant, explained that after this discovery, cleaning of the surrounding production lines was still planned “for the next two weeks”.
Added to this is a “technical maintenance” operation, which explains that “all production” is for the moment stopped, underlined in the evening another spokesperson for the company.
“But the factory is not closed”, added Ms. Evrard, and the salaries of the employees are “100% covered”.
In a press release published on July 6 on its site, Ferrero had announced the temporary shutdown since the previous week of “part of the production lines”, after the discovery of salmonella during “reinforced checks” carried out by its teams.
The group presented this suspension of manufacture as a “precautionary measure”, specifying that “no final product has tested positive”.
In April 2022, Ferrero had already had to stop production in Arlon and, above all, recall all products manufactured on the site, after the report of dozens of cases of salmonellosis possibly linked to the consumption of its chocolate products in several European countries. Europe.
Salmonellosis causes symptoms similar to those of sometimes acute gastroenteritis: diarrhea and abdominal cramps, slight fever, even vomiting. No deaths had been reported.
Placed under the close surveillance of the Belgian health authorities, the Arlon factory finally received a final green light in September for it to restart under normal conditions.
The Italian giant had to justify major cleaning operations and investments in new pipes as well as hundreds of quality tests to be able to restart.
Suspected of having been slow to react to a problem identified in December 2021, Ferrero has been the target of legal investigations in Belgium and France.
Arlon, in the Belgian Ardennes, is a major site of this group known worldwide for its Kinder and Nutella brands.