More Cadbury chocs may be tainted

The scare over salmonella infected chocolate has gathered momentum with another thirty of Cadbury's products now being tested for the nasty bug.

Officials from Birmingham City Council, UK, say there is a possibility that the initial list of salmonella infected brands did not include several other suspect items.

Last week the company withdrew over one million chocolate bars from the market after salmonella had been identified in some of them.

Salmonella Montevideo, a very rare strain, has already been identified in some brands but according to Cadbury's, the chocolates on the shelves now in retail outlets are safe.

The world renowned company kept quiet about contamination due to a leaking pipe at their Herefordshire factory; they had apparently known about the contamination since last January but said nothing about it until June 19, and the company now potentially faces prosecution for keeping the incident quiet.

The incident only came to light when doctors reported an unusual rise of salmonella Montevideo infections in the UK this year mainly among children and the common denominator was chocolate.

Warnings have been now been issued of potential salmonella contamination in the following brands:

• 250g Dairy Milk Turkish,
• Dairy Milk Caramel bars,
• Dairy Milk Mint,
• Dairy Milk 8 chunk,
• 1kg Dairy Milk bar,
• Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Egg,
• Freddo bar.

Birmingham City Council's food safety team say that in cooperation with the chocolate manufacturer, they are testing both current product lines and past product lines that have been returned in order to find out whether there is any contamination of current or past stocks.

It is thought the chocolate crumb mix, a sugar, milk and cocoa mixture, used to make the brands that were removed was also used to make other brands that were not removed and the Food Standards Agency says that in view of this it is not possible to exclude the other brands from the possible contaminated list.

Cadbury's says that it has tested tens of thousands of items of confectionary and has not identified one single case of salmonella contamination.

The company says that product lines are currently being tested at least four times each day.

The incident is expected to cost the chocolate giant millions of pounds.