The Cadbury Situation
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006For those of you who are regulars on our site www.echocolatenyc the Cadbury salmonella story is something you’re familiar with. We’ve decided to layout the story and ask you for your opinions. It all started June 22, 2006 when Cadbury announced it was recalling the 250g Dairy Milk Turkish, Dairy Milk Caramel and Dairy Milk Mint bars, the Dairy Milk 8 chunk, the 1kg Dairy Milk bar, the 105g Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Egg, and the 10p Freddo bar. It was announced over one million chocolate bars were being recalled as a precautionary measure after Cadbury had consulted with the Food Standards Agency (FSA). It would only affect bars that had been released in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It seemed that Cadbury had the best interest of the consumer at heart and was volunteering to act in the public good. A spokeswoman explained that they had found a leaking waste water pipe which had contaminated some crumb product at their Marlbrook plant, near Leominster in Herefordshire, England. She went on to explain “We have the most stringent standards for testing for salmonella, more even than the Health Protection Agency levels,” she said. “We found it in minute traces, which were well below the level that could raise any kind of alert, which is in itself below the level that could cause any kind of illness.” She went on to say “One scientist called it a vanishingly small amount,” “But the consumer comes first.” So far so good. A company finds a possible contamination in a batch of their product and goes out of its way to withdraw the product eventhough their is no real possibility of it causing any damage just to be safe.
The crumb that was produced was to be mixed with chocolate at another plant to make the Chocolate bars.
The next day the facts of the story shifted. It seemed that Cadbury had been aware of the contamination five months earlier and had not found it important enough to report to Public Health Authorities. They had only reported it after an outbreak of salmonella montevideo had led the Food Standards Agency to start an investigation into possible sources of the salmonella which was running at three times the normal rate. The FSA declared they would have thought that Cadbury would have informed them of the situation sooner as salmonella in ready to eat foods like chocolate is dangerous at any level. Sir Hugh Pennington, president of the Society for General Microbiology, declared in an interview that fats in chocolate would make it difficult for stomach acids to destroy the salmonella making any amount of salmonella in chocolate dangerous. He also made the point ‘It will be possible to gather a genetic fingerprint for the salmonella in the chocolate and from samples provided by those who fell sick. That should provide evidence of any link.
“We are absolutely satisfied that our products are and continue to be safe to eat,” the company’s European president Matt Shattock told BBC radio. He went on to state “We have no evidence that anyone has been ill from eating them.”
English newspapers started to extensively cover the story as virtually everyone in the United Kingdom has eaten a Cadbury product at some point and with 53 victims, many of them children there was plenty to write about.
On June 24th, countries as diverse as Singapore and The United Arab Emirates announced a ban on some Cadbury products imported from the United Kingdom. The U.K. Food Standards Agency announced they planned on launching an investigation as to why Cadbury waited almost 6 months to inform them of possible conatamination. Cadbury countered with the fact that they had sent samples on to the proper authorities in good faith but hadn’t mentioned the salmonella as the level was so low they didn’t believe it posed any threat to the public welfare. “We followed regulations at the time of detection, which was below the level for any alert or concern,'’ said Cadbury’s spokeswoman Andraea Dawson-Shepherd.
The FSA had begun an investigation into chocolate as a possible source of the rare strain of the salmonella outbreak after finding so many chldren taking ill. Typically those who suffer from salmonella montevideo have recently traveled outside of the country. Cadbury also announced that they were ging to bury the expected 250 tons of returned chocolate in an undisclosed location to keep kids away who might otherwise dig it up.
June 25th brought the news that the infected chocolate shared the same genetic fingerprints as the strain of salmonella that had caused so much illness. While not 100% proof this seemed to make the chocolate guilty of causing the outbreak. While confirming the genetic testing results the Health Protection Agency also claimed there may have been 5 times as many cases as reported as those with a low grade case may not have sought medical help.
By June 29th it was established that the strain of salmonella montevideo was SmvdX07 and the most affected group was two year olds.
By June 30th testing had started on 30 more Cadbury products after it was reveled that they were produced from crumb that was stored in the same silo as the infected crumb. The Edinburgh city council also conducted an investigation and found that after inspecting over 200 shops 16% of them were still selling recalled product. A Cadbury spokeswoman also claimed that company was currently testing thousands of product and had found no further traces of salmonella.
July 4th found the Food Safety Agency ruling that Cadbury’s testing had been inadequate. Cadbury felt trace amounts of salmonella were okay whereas the FSA felt that any amount of salmonella in chocolate was unacceptable. The agency was highly critical “We think the testing methods were insufficiently up to date and insufficiently sensitive,” said Tom Humphrey, chairman of the agency’s advisory committee on the microbiological safety of food.
Brunei bans the Cadbury lines that had been recalled.
July 6th found the alert spreading as it became common knowledge that Cadbury had sold chocolate crumb that had been produced at the Herefordshire factory to other producers. In addition to the 250 tons that Cadbury had recalled another 4,500 tons of Cadbury product may have been affected and crumb that had been shipped to other manufacturers may also have led to contaminated goods.
July 9th found Cadbury possibly facing charges for providing food unfit for human consumption. They could also be charged with failing to carry out proper risk assessments, and failing to notify local authorities when contaminated chocolate was discovered. Cadbury still maintained that their product was not the cause of the salmonella outbreak and that they had followed acceptable procedures to guarantee safety in their products.
July 10th found Catherine Henderson, 62, of County Antrim, N Ireland, who had spent five days in the hospital stepped up as the first possible plaintiff in a civil suit. Tests showed her illness was the strain of salmonella that had infected Cadbury chocolate. Cadbury held firm and reiterated that the contamination of their product was so low that it could not possibly cause illness.
By July 11th Cadbury had come to an agreement with the FSA and agreed to a host of changes. Cadbury will not test product and wait for the results before releasing it for sale. They will increase the amount of testing over a wider range of products and will have zero tolerance for any amount of salmonella no matter how small.
July 21st found the Health Protection Agency issuing a statement that 36 of the 56 cases of salmonela montevideo were most likely linked to infected Cadbury chocolate. The agency’s Outbreak Control Team (OCT) said: “After carefully considering all the available evidence the OCT concluded that consumption of products made by Cadbury Schweppes was the most credible explanation for the outbreak of salmonella Montevideo.” The agency’s Outbreak Control Team (OCT) said: “After carefully considering all the available evidence the OCT concluded that consumption of products made by Cadbury Schweppes was the most credible explanation for the outbreak of salmonella Montevideo. The agency also pointed out that the number of cases dropped off after the chocolate was recalled and the nationwide scope of the outbreak meant that a nationally distributed product had to be behind it. Thirteen of those stricken reported they had consumed Cadbury product shortly before getting sick.
July 24th found news reports that Cadbury would consider compensating those who were stricken.
July 25th found the Liberal Democrat Party, Great Britain’s third largest political Party, joining the fray calling for the prosecution of the company for failing to notify the authorities. Unlike the United States the third largest Party in the U.K. has a nationwide appeal and over 60 members in the British Parliament.
August 2nd Cadbury announced the recalled chocolate lines will be reintroduced for sale. The bars that were recalled were Dairy Milk, Dairy Milk Turkish, Dairy Milk Caramel, Dairy Milk Mint, Dairy Milk 8, the Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Egg and the Freddo bar. All but the Easter Egg and the Freddo bar will make their comebacks shortly. The Easter Eggs will reappear closer to easter and the Freddo Bar will be discontinued.
So where are we today ? Estimates vary as to how much the contamination will eventually cost Cadbury. Most seem to be in the 20 - 50 million dollars range. So far there has not been a criminal prosecution and the share price has remained stable. Could Cadbury have handled the situation differently ? Instead of sandbagging might they have been better served just honestly admitting they made a mistake and quickly compensating as many of the victims involved. Remember only 35 or so cases have been linked to the chocolate and for the most part the worst that happened was the afflicted were extremely sick for 5 days or so. There was no loss of life and no one is alleging permanent damage. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out and I welcome your comments.
If you would like to read the articles that were used to research this posting go to www.echocolatenyc.com and look at the article recaps on our home page. The older articles can be found by visiting our archives.
