Although chocolate infected with Salmonella was manufactured at Barry Callebaut's Wieze, Belgium plant, the Group has determined that none of it entered its retail supply chain. 

On Monday, June 27, Barry Callebaut detected a Salmonella-positive production lot manufactured in Wieze. The Group’s food safety programs in place allowed it to quickly identify lecithin as the source of the contamination, an ingredient widely used in chocolate production. Barry Callebaut informed the Belgian Food Safety Authorities (FAVV) about the incident, stopped all chocolate production lines as a precautionary measure and put a hold on all products manufactured since the time of testing. 

The chocolate production in Wieze will remain suspended until further notice. Barry Callebaut is diligently pursuing its very thorough root cause analysis and keeping the FAVV informed in the process. When the analyses are completed, the lines will be cleaned and disinfected before the production process resumes.

Barry Callebaut has a food safety charter and procedure in place, as well as over 230 employees working on food safety and quality in Europe, and over 650 worldwide. Wieze employees are trained to recognize food safety risks, which allowed the teams to quickly identify the risk and initiate the root cause analysis.