Why did it take Cadbury six months to tell the Food Standards Agency that it had found salmonella traces in the chocolate crumb at one of its factories? The sequence of events is still unclear but Cadbury claims the story began with a leaking pipe at its Malbrook plant. One possibility discussed in the press is that rats, mice or even wild birds – which can carry the Montevideo strain – may have contaminated the water in the pipe.
Cadbury says the problem was detected by a private lab contracted by the company to monitor its production line. Then nothing. No calls to the FSA or relevant local authority. No product recall. No newspaper adverts. Instead the company kept quiet because it apparently thought the contamination posed no risk to human health. Indeed it still maintains there is no danger and it only recalled the chocolate bars to reassure the public.
So why did the company change its mind and come clean last week? This is where it gets interesting. It just happened that the Health Protection Agency was investigating an unusual spike in the number of Salmonella Montevideo cases at the same time. Since March, 45 people have fallen ill compared with only 12 cases in the same period last year.
By chance the private lab working for Cadbury sent the Montevideo sample it had taken from the Malbrook factory to the HPA to aid identification. The HPA realised it was similar to the strain which lay behind the food poisoning spike and alerted the FSA, although it stresses there is no direct evidence linking the increase to Cadbury’s contamination.
The FSA contacted the private lab to discover the source of the sample. The lab told Cadbury and then – only then – did Cadbury decide to let the rest of the world in on what it already knew. This sorry tale raises many important questions. How exactly was the chocolate contaminated? Is the contamination linked to the national increase in salmonella poisoning? But the key question is this: why did it take Cadbury six months to tell the FSA about the contamination? And why did it then take another four days to organise a product recall after it was requested by the FSA?"
http://www.cieh.org/ehn/editorial/2006/june/articles/chocola te_leaves_a_bad_taste.htm
If this doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth, the chocolate may well do it for you.
