On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 03:42:41 +0100, Steve Firth wrote:

Made just down the road from me, people who work there tend not to eat
the product. But then again, anyone I have met who has ever worked in a
food factory tends to refuse to eat the product.

Same here, makes you wonder doesn't it...

Cadbury have however hit a new all time low AFAIC. Having a factory in
which a sewage pipe crosses a food manufacturing line is bad enough to
start with.

Evidence for that please? "Sewage" implies foul water from a toilet,
rather than waste machine washing water. I've not seen any reference to
"crossing" only running adjacent and splashes from drips reaching the
line. Reported levels of contamination are extremely low as well. Figures
commonly quoted are 0.3 cells/100g, the "alert" level is 10 cells/100g,
with the level required to make you ill around 1,000,000 cells/100g.

I suspect that as the level detected was way below the "alert" level
Cadbury didn't bother to tell the FSA but just quietly found and fixed
the leak. The FSA spotted an increase in the number of cases involving
this rare strain salmonella and started digging. Eventually finding the a
lab that had some +ve results for samples from Cadbury. As they hadn't
been told (no need, level so low...) the FSA then go "overboard" telling
Cadbury to remove all products from the market place that might
conceivably be contaminated, even though Cadbury have reported that only
about 5,000 bars have any significant risk. The rest is pure media hype.

The question that should be asked, as there has been a rise in the number
of cases, is: Is the general testing for and reporting of salmonella
strict enough?

Personally we have a box of 60 Freddo Bars bought about a month ago. Many
of which have been eaten with no ill effects what so ever. We aren't
going to return 'em.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail