Israel’s Health Ministry issued a report following its audit of the Strauss factory last week following the salmonella finding and the largest recall in Israeli history.
About 30 out of 300 samples taken so far from the factory’s production line, raw material, in-process products, and final products tested positive for salmonella. As of Sunday morning, there have been 21 reported incidents of salmonella tied to Strauss products, six of whom were hospitalized, a number that fortunately does not indicate a widespread outbreak.
The audit uncovered significant failures in the company’s procedures and behavior. The following are the main findings of the audit:
- Construction was carried out at the site in recent months without halting the production process and without regard to the potential risks that could affect the production process and quality control of the plant.
- Pigeons had infiltrated the plant several weeks prior to the audit, and although the infiltration was addressed immediately and an exterminator was called, officials failed to carry out comprehensive tests to evaluate whether the infiltration affected the safety of the products.
- The factory’s professional quality control team had been replaced in the past year but the position of the food safety manager was unfilled for the last several months, leading to a serious lapse in the plant’s supervision.
- A customer had reported to the plant that salmonella indicators in the liquid chocolate were higher than indicated by the permitted standard. The complaint was not addressed and no tests were performed for possible salmonella contamination.
- A fundamental failure was found in the thawing process of the chocolate milk fat. It was not being carried out according to the manufacturer’s instructions for thawing and storage, which put it at risk of contamination.
The Health Ministry submitted a full investigative report to Strauss the day after the audit. The plant is expected to respond to the report’s findings within 14 days.
According to the results of the tests carried out so far, any connection between the finding of salmonella in Belgium in Kinder chocolate products and the incident at Strauss has been ruled out.
As a testament to Strauss’ monopoly on the Israeli snack market, see the photo below of a vending machine in a hospital following the recall:
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Unbelievable how people still take this guy literally.
Isn’t it great to have an honest person that says what he thinks?
I’m sure if it was Obama sitting in the oven office and a right wing protest would happen, he’d probably just think to himself, wow these lovely peoples I should tell my staff to make lemonade for the protesters.
If they are guilty of negligence then they are a danger to society
If it was an individual they would be in prison
As a company they should never be allowed to open again
Those hazelnuts in your chocolate bars may have actually been pigeon droppings! Feh. I hope Swiss chocolates and domestically produced (U.S.) chocolates have a higher level of cleanliness.
This is what transpires when health department became so overly obsessive and dictatorship over Corona these past 2 years, hence everything else was neglected and fell through the cracks
They should have been occupied closing infested food plants instead of border to חוצנקים
The factory owners did their job wanting to make money, as all people ,
but it is the health ministry that failed to do its job waiting for audit on them, but I am not standing and waiting for the audit, they will just blame the factory