Cadbury has vigorously denied allegations that it broke the law by failing immediately to inform the authorities that some of its products had been contaminated by minute traces of salmonella.
However, food safety experts say they would be “shocked” if the chocolate giant was not prosecuted for failing to contact either the Food Standards Agency or local environmental health officers when it first became aware that a leaking waste water pipe at its Marlbrook factory had infected some products with salmonella in January.
Their comments came after Cadbury announced plans to recall more than 1M chocolate bars last Friday “as a precautionary measure”, almost six months after the problem was discovered.
Independent food safety expert Malcolm Kane said Cadbury's claims that the minute levels (0.3 cells of salmonella per 100g of chocolate crumb) involved meant there was no food safety risk were “irrelevant”. He said: “Salmonella is a zero tolerance bacteria that is relatively resilient in a product like chocolate that has a high fat content. Because it is typically eaten between meals as a snack, it is also less likely to be digested with other foods and therefore diluted. By definition, your stomach is more likely to be empty when you eat chocolate and you are therefore more vulnerable.”
He added: “If Cadbury says it didn't tell anyone because the levels were too low, I think they will be laughed out of court. I will be really shocked if they are not prosecuted over this.”
The Food Standards Agency was investigating the incident along with the local authorities covering the company's Bournville HQ and the factory in Marlbrook responsible for infecting the products, said an FSA spokeswoman.
“Under article 19 of the EU General Food Law 178/2002, food business operators are obliged to inform the competent authorities immediately if they are not in compliance with food safety requirements.” Although the levels of salmonella in the seven product lines covered in the recall were minute, “any contamination of salmonella in a ready to eat food is unacceptable”, she added.
However, it would be up to the local authorities to decide whether to prosecute, she pointed out.
A Cadbury spokeswoman said: “Our obligation is to notify the authorities if we believe that there is a risk to human health. There is not a risk at the levels in question, so we were not in breach of the law. We're talking about 0.3 cells per 100g. Our alert level is 10 cells per 100g.”
Chris Woodcock, md of communications consultancy Razor, said: “This is a classic case of a business needing to consider all the reputational and brand-protection aspects of a possible food safety, technical problem, before deciding whether or not to recall.”
She added: “It is the apparent lack of transparency that is now attracting most criticism in media and expert commentary.”