A Dutch retailer has issued a recall after mistakenly sending Ferrero chocolate potentially contaminated with Salmonella to market.
Jumbo is recalling Ferrero Kinder Schokobons 300 grams with an expiry date of Oct. 5, 2022 or earlier.
These products were recalled by Ferrero in April this year in relation to a multi-country monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak. However, Jumbo said some chocolate had recently been delivered to a limited number of stores.
The retailer added that as soon as the error became known, all stock was removed from stores as a precaution.
Jumbo asked customers not to consume the affected Ferrero Kinder Schokobons and to return them to one of its stores.
Official figures show the Netherlands had three cases related to the outbreak that affected more than 450 people from December 2021 to June 2022.
Incident background
The UK had the most patients with more than 100 followed by France. There were four cases in Canada and one in the United States.
Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Luxembourg, Italy, Denmark and Czech Republic all recorded infections as part of the outbreak.
This past month, Ferrero passed a probationary restart period at the Arlon facility in Belgium, which was where contamination occurred.
Operations at the factory were suspended in April. In May, Ferrero asked to be allowed to produce again and in June, the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC), also known as AFSCA or FAVV, gave conditional approval for the plant to restart.
New batches of chocolate have already reached the market. These Kinder products have a best before date of April 20, 2023 or later. An investigation into the incident by the Luxembourg Public Prosecutor’s Office is ongoing.
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