Lactalis withdraws 12 million packs of baby milk due to salmonella

The French company Lactalis has withdrawn 12 million packages of powdered baby milk in 83 countries due to the scandal concerning the presence of salmonella in the products, the company's head officials announced.

Lactalis CEO Emmanuel Besnier said in his first statement for the French media since the beginning of the scandal that distributors no longer had to sort powdered milk in order to find the contaminated packages and added that they knew that they all needed to be removed from the stores, TV France 24 reports.

Besnier, who talked to French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire, on Friday, January 12, 2018, promised that all the affected families would receive compensation.

According to him, the company's biggest concern are potential health consequences in babies under six months of age.

Hundreds of families have sued Lactalis, claiming that their children experienced food poisoning by consuming the producer's powdered milk.

The French authorities announced that 35 babies had experienced health problems in early December and that they were related to the Lactalis products in which salmonella had been found. A case of poisoning was detected in Spain, whereas one such case is being looked into in Greece.

The Lactalis group previously withdrew several million baby products made since February in early December, and on Sunday, January 14, 2018, it was announced that the decision on the precautionary withdrawing of the products pertained to all the products made in the factory in Craon, in northwest France, regardless of the date of the production.

In its press release, Lactalis apologized to customers and said that the inspection had shown that the problem occurred following the renovation in Craon in early 2017.

It is added that the production had been halted in the said factory.

In early December, the French government published a list of countries including China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Sudan, Peru and Colombia, but not the USA, a big Lactalis market.

The company Amicus SRB announced on December 11 that it was withdrawing the diet product Celia Expert 2, series 17COO12838, made by Lactalis, from the Serbian market out of precaution.

Groupe Lactalis

Amicus SRB d.o.o. Beograd

Amicus SRB

Lactalis

baby milk

powdered baby milk

Emmanuel Besnier

Bruno Le Maire

Celia Expert

baby food