Foto: Belga

Chocolate-maker Neuhaus suspends production

The luxury chocolate-maker Neuhaus has suspened production after it emerged that some of the chocolate that it had used to produce its chocolate truffles had come from a batch produced at the Barry Callebaut factory in Weize (East Flanders) that had been found to be infected with salmonella. Neuhaus that sells its top of the range products all over the world says that Barry Callebaut informed it about the infection “too late”. 

In an interview with the Francophone daily ‘La Dernière Heure’, Neuhaus’ CEO Ignace Van Doorselaere says that his company wasn’t informed about the infected chocolate until Wednesday evening.

Due to the salmonella infection at the Wieze Barry Callebaut plant all the chocolate produced there since Saturday 25 June is being withheld. However, some of the chocolate had already been delivered to Neuhaus before the infection was discovered. Neuhaus says that it wasn’t made aware that there were any issues with the chocolate until Wednesday evening. By then it had used some of it in the production of its luxury truffles.

"By then a large portion of the chocolate that might be infected had already been used in our factories. We have been forced to isolate and destroy the stock and have also had to close our factory”, Neuhaus’ CEO Ignace Van Doorselaere said.

The Neuhaus factory will remain closed for between two and four weeks while it is thoroughly cleansed. The company hopes to be able to restart production at the beginning of August.

In reaction to the news that Neuhaus had been forced to halt production. A spokesman for Barry Callebaut told journalists that he has every understanding for Neuhaus’ situation. However, the spokesman went on to say that Barry Callebaut could not have informed its customers any quicker than it did.

 

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