The contaminated raw materials that forced Barry Callebaut to halt chocolate production in Belgium came from Hungary.
One batch of lecithin was unloaded at the Wieze factory on June 25. Barry Callebaut confirmed Salmonella Tennessee has been identified in the lecithin system of the factory and in samples of the delivered material. This batch came from a lecithin manufacturer in Hungary and was transported by a third party. The lecithin involved is only used at this site.
On June 27, Barry Callebaut detected a Salmonella positive on a production lot manufactured in Wieze and lecithin was identified as the source of the contamination on June 29.
Lecithin is used in all chocolate production lines in Wieze, so the company decided to stop the lines and to block all chocolate products manufactured from June 25 to 29, except for cocoa production which is not linked to the lecithin circuit.
On July 1, Barry Callebaut confirmed that, based on its internal investigation, no affected products had entered the retail food chain. No implicated chocolate has been exported by the company outside Europe.
FoodWorld 