Where does salmonella contamination come from?

Tuesday, April 5, ten days before Easter, millions of Kinder chocolate eggs are withdrawn from supermarket shelves. Several products are recalled for suspected salmonella. These are Kinder surprises which expire between the end of June 2022 and the end of October 2022, schoko bons and mini eggs which can be consumed until the end of April and the end of August 2022. In France, 21 cases of salmonellosis have been reported and eight people hospitalized, mostly children.

Kinder products would have been produced at the factory in Arlon (Belgium), the most important site of the group which exports to 45 countries. The Belgian food safety agency will carry out checks. The Pasteur Institute analyzes chocolate to find out if the bacteria is present in one of the ingredients. “Chocolate is an agricultural product that can be contaminated by salmonella of animal origin”explains François-Xavier Weill, director of the salmonella reference center at the Institut Pasteur.