French giant Lactalis charged in case of contaminated infant milk

The French court indicted this Thursday the world leader in the dairy sector, Lactalis, in the case of infant milk contaminated by salmonella that forced the massive withdrawal of products in France and other countries such as Colombia and Spain in 2017.

Lactalis and the company Celia Laiterie are accused of aggravated fraud, involuntary injury and failure to comply with the withdrawal and recovery measures, the group announced in a statement and a judicial source confirmed.

Justice also imposes judicial control on both companies based in the French department of Mayenne (west) with a bond of 300,000 euros (US$ 321,000) each, these sources specified.

“This stage marks the beginning of the judicial investigation in which Lactalis undertakes to participate fully and with total transparency.”, added the group, specifying that this will reveal the “scientific truth”.

Doctors detected salmonella in several dozen babies in France and at least two in Spain between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, after having consumed a children’s product manufactured at the group’s plant in Craon (west).

Salmonella is a food poisoning that ranges from mild gastroenteritis to more serious infections, especially in young children, the elderly, or the sick.

The withdrawal process of these products in more than 80 countries including Spain, Colombia and Peru it was chaotic. After several weeks of crisis, the group withdrew all infant milk produced in Craon by mid-January 2018.

The company run by Emmanuel Besnier assured months later that the contamination was due to some “works carried out in the first quarter of 2017″ in said factory, which already registered a similar case in 2005.

The Pasteur Institute, a benchmark in France for infection research, then concluded that the salmonella bacteria present in Craon managed to persist between 2005 and 2017.

According to the annual report on the world dairy industry prepared by the Dutch financial group Rabobank, Lactalis was the sector leader in 2022, followed by the Swiss Nestlé and the French Danone.

Source: AFP