Life is far from returning to normal for the Shamir Salad Company following last week’s announced salmonella contamination in products containing tehina. The origin of the salmonella was traced to the tehina, which was supplied by the Nasich (Prince) Tehina Company in northern Israel. That factory has since been shut down as Health Ministry officials continue the probe into the contamination.

According to the Channel 2 News report, Shamir Salads has been hard economically as consumers are not too quick to begin trusting the company again. The report adds that Prince tehina was sent to Shamir Salads accompanied by test results from an independent lab, which failed to determine the presence of salmonella. It has since been learned those tests were not conducted as they should have been.

On July 25th, Prince sent its tehina for inspection to the Microbiological Institute in Nesher, an independent lab, which failed to detect the presence of salmonella, apparently because the inspection was not performed in line with protocol. However, an inspection conducted in the Strauss factory, salmonella was detected and they filed the results of the tests with Prince Tehina.

Officials at Shamir Salads are furious, explaining they were not kept in the loop by Prince Tehina or the Ministry of Health regarding feared contamination of one of the ingredients, in this case tehina. However, Shamir has been hit hard as a result, since consumers are not buying the company’s products since news went public last week.

On Tuesday 12 Menachem Av at 10:00AM a hearing was held among Health Ministry officials to discuss the matter. Representatives of Prince Tehina were among those invited to attend. Company official Affif Tanus over the weekend told officials that the contamination was detected on July 25th and on the 27th, they checked again to determine if any notification was received by Strauss. Affif adds “We then collected all the merchandise from Strauss and Tzabar, and we halted all sales. Shamir Salads is a new client with us, and on the 25th we ordered the closure of the factory to permit cleaning the entire plant. I was unaware that Shamir was never notified. I accept responsibility for this. It is a very large factory and this is the only incident on my watch that a member of my team failed to make notification”.

On Sunday, 10 Menachem Av, the Health Ministry announced the results of a hearing given to officials of Prince Tehina, stating the company was negligent and failed to act in a responsible professional manner”. The ministry announced a number of measures would be taken against the tehina supplier.

For the time being, the company may not produce tehina and all contaminated products must be destroyed. Officials have been informed that for the time being, the investigation continues. In the interim, additional product samples have been taken and are being tested. The Health Ministry is yet to announce what legal action if any is planned against the Prince Tehina Company.

The law office of Gideon Fischer & Co., which is representing Prince Tehina, released a statement to the media stating it acted on its own to halt production of tehina and has been transparent and cooperative in all aspects of the investigation. In addition, the company has learned from this unfortunate incident and is incorporating a quality control testing station in house, emphasizing that the company has been totally compliant with the law in all aspects of its production.

The statement adds that the test results from the independent lab received by Prince Tehina gave a green light to market the product and it remain confident that subsequent product testing will yield the same results.

In its response to the class action suit filed against it and other companies involved, Shamir Salads company officials highlight their commitment to the integrity of their product and health standards, and this is why strict testing is performed towards determining any deficiency whatsoever.

The Shamir statement added, “When we learned on Wednesday evening of a problem with Prince Tehina, we did not take any chance with the health of the consumer and ordered a recall first thing Thursday morning, a recall of all products containing tehina. Unfortunately, Prince Tehina did not exhibit the same level of responsibility and hid salmonella contamination fears for 17 days at least. Hence, we are weighing legal action against them” (Prince Tehina).

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)