Production stopped in the world’s biggest chocolate plant, run by Swiss giant Barry Callebaut in the Belgian town of Wieze, after salmonella contaminations were originate, the firm said Thursday.
A company spokesman told AFP that production possessively halted at the factory, which produces liquid chocolate in wholesale batches for 73 clients making confectionaries.
The company said that 72 of the 73 companies have established that they halted deliveries of potentially contaminated chocolate in time to avoid any hitting the shops and were waiting for a answer from the last client.
No reports so far of any chocolate consumers exposed to salmonella, which reasons salmonellosis, a disease that causes diarrhea and fever but is only unsafe in the most extreme cases.
“All products manufactured since the test blocked,” spokesman Korneel Warlop said.
“Barry Callebaut is currently contacting all customers who may have received contaminated products. Chocolate production in Wieze remains suspended until further notice.”
Most of the products revealed to contaminated are still on the site, he said.
But the firm has communicated all its clients and asked them not to ship any products they have made with chocolate made since June 25 at these Wieze plant, which is in Flanders, northwest of Brussels.
“Food safety is of the utmost importance for Barry Callebaut and this contamination is quite exceptional. We have a well-defined food safety charter and procedures,” the firm said.
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Belgium’s food safety agency AFSCA informed and a spokesman told AFP it had opened an examination.
An AFSCA spokesman said investigators would “gather all the information in order to trace the contamination”.
The Wieze plant not make chocolates to sold openly to consumers, and the firm no reason to trust that any contaminated goods made clients yet made it onto shop shelves.
The fright comes a few weeks after a case of chocolates contaminated with salmonella in the Ferrero factory in Arlon in southern Belgium manufacturing Kinder chocolates.
Belgian health authorities said on June 17 that they had given the green light to resume the Italian giant’s factory for a three-month test period.
Swiss group Barry Callebaut supplies cocoa and chocolate products to numerous companies in the food industry, containing industry giants such as Hershey, Mondelez, Nestle or Unilever.
World number one in the sector, its annual sales amounted to 2.2 million tons throughout the 2020-2021 financial year.
Over the past financial year, the group, which has a head office is in Zurich, generated a net profit of 384.5 million Swiss francs ($402 million) for 7.2 billion francs in turnover.
The group employs more than 13,000 people, has more than 60 production sites worldwide.