Cadbury clashes with watchdogs

Chocolate makers Cadbury today insisted there was no link between a food poisoning outbreak and the mass contamination of their products with the same bacteria.

Senior executives said their bars were “perfectly safe” despite recalling more than a million from store shelves.

But the British Health Protection Agency would not rule out a link between the recall and a quadrupling of cases of the rare montevideo salmonella strain over the last four months.

An HPA spokeswoman said that if the number now dropped off it would strongly indicate that the confectionery was to blame.

Cadbury came under fire from the Food Standards Agency over its failure to report the finding of salmonella when it was discovered five months ago.

A spokesman said it would have expected to be told about the problem straight away, stressing that it did pose a “real food risk”.

Meanwhile MPs demanded an explanation about why it had taken so long for Cadbury to bring the issue to light.

The firm announced the recall yesterday, caused by the contamination from a leaking pipe at one of its main factories in Marlbrook, Herefordshire.

Seven of its most popular brands were affected and the public was warned not to eat any products they may have already bought.

Cadbury executives toured television and radio studios today to insist on the safety of their products and defend the delay in reporting the contamination.

Managing director Simon Baldry told BBC News 24 there had been “no need” to take products off the market back in January.

He added: “Our products were perfectly safe. We’d gone through our rigorous testing process. We’d identified that these were only minute traces.”

Matthew Shattock, the company’s European president, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the levels found at the Herefordshire plant were well below those at which it would normally issue a safety alert.

He said out of 7,000 samples taken, just 14 were found to have minute traces, with the highest level one-thirtieth of the normal level for an alert.

Since then, testing had been stepped up and in a further 17,000 samples not a single trace of salmonella had been found, he added.

Mr Shattock said Cadbury was “very concerned” about the damage the recall could do to its reputation.

It had been ordered not because any of its products might be a danger to health but to avoid “confusion” over the increased incidence of the montevideo strain.

He added: “Our products are perfectly safe to eat and we have no evidence that anyone has been ill from eating them.”

A spokeswoman for the HPA said there had been 45 cases of the “rare strain” salmonella montevideo over the last four months, compared with just 12 over the same period last year, including a significant rise among children.

There was no evidence this was linked to the Cadbury contamination, she said.

But she added: “If the number of cases reported to us does decline it will be stronger evidence of a link with confectionery products.”

A spokesman for the FSA insisted the salmonella found in chocolate did pose a “real food risk”.

He added: “We were told on Monday that there was a problem occurring in January and that problem has gone on for a number of weeks before being corrected. We would have expected them to tell us.

“As far as ready-to-eat foods [such as chocolate bars] salmonella contamination is not acceptable and that is why we would have expected to be told in January.”

Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, called for a full explanation about why it took so long to withdraw the products.

Liberal Democrat MP, Bob Russell (Colchester), said he would be asking questions in the Commons about the affair.

“It seems extraordinary that Cadbury, or whoever makes these decisions, decided to withdraw these products so far down the line when there were concerns about this some months ago,” he said.

Cadbury has recalled 250g Dairy Milk Turkish, Dairy Milk Caramel and Dairy Milk Mint bars, eight chunk Dairy Milk bars, 1kg Dairy Milk bars, 10p Freddo bars, and 105g Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Eggs.

Customers have been told these products should be returned to the manufacturer for a refund.