“The bond of trust is broken” with Ferrero “and we made the decision” to stop “production at the Arlon site” in Belgium, explained on franceinfo Jean-Sebastien Walhin, director of communication for the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (AFSCA), after the closure of the Arlon production site after several cases of salmonella in several countries from Europe.
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franceinfo: Why did you order production to stop at the Arlon site in Belgium?
Jean-Sebastien Walhin: Doctors in Britain found that children were falling ill, they had stool tests done and they extracted a bacterium whose strain matches a bacterium that was identified in Ferrero’s production plant in Arlon, in Belgium. From that moment, the Belgian authorities were notified and we went directly to the site to carry out an investigation and see what could explain such a situation. As our investigation progressed, we realized that we had to recall products, which we did this week, and on Friday morning, we noticed that the information transmitted by Ferrero lacked reliability, consistency . Therefore, the bond of trust is broken and we have taken the decision to withdraw the production authorization from this site in Arlon.
When did you start your investigation?
We started the investigation on April 1. We directly identified that it was necessary as a precaution to recall a whole series of products from the Arlon site. This recall took place three days ago and today, based on the information provided by Ferrero during our investigation, we realized that it was time to take strong action because the management within of the Ferrero group did not show effective management of the situation. We have therefore decided to close the establishment. It has been noted that the solutions provided by Ferrero have led to Kinder eggs ending up on the market. These are shortcomings that we identify.
What do you blame Ferrero for?
We have evidence that there is contamination at some point, but contamination is one thing and management is another. From the moment when the management is not optimal, effective, measures must be taken on behalf of the company to ensure that the situation can be resolved in the weeks to come without the consumer being impacted. The investigation and investigations are still in progress, but we need to be able to establish links more quickly, identify the source of the real contamination, the right actions to put in place to limit consumption. We see that at certain times there may have been failures and we must investigate them to see what Ferrero should or could have done, in particular preventing the Afsca in December from salmonella contamination.
“All this is being studied, the responsibilities are not yet established but Ferrero will have to be accountable.”
Jean-Sebastien Walhin, communication director of the FASFCat franceinfo
How does the Ferrero group react?
He really seems to think that the suspension and withdrawal of their authorization is the solution which will make it possible to take the adequate measures of cleaning, disinfection, of what could have happened. Ferrero looks in the same direction as authority, that is to say towards consumer safety. We hope that we will stop there in terms of public health.