The scandal broke last March. Many children had been contaminated, sometimes leading to hospitalization, by the Escherichia Coli bacteria, after eating a pizza from the Fraich’Up range at Buitoni. Two of them had died.
Since then, the company has been in the sights of a new investigation.
Because this is not the first time that the authorities have pointed to the more than questionable hygiene conditions of the Caudry factory, where the offending pizzas are made.
A report, to which Agence France Presse had access this week, confirms that shortcomings were reported as early as 2012 in the manufacture.
In 2014, then in 2020, however, new inspections by agents of the Departmental Directorate for the Protection of Populations (DDPP) revealed the same problems.
The plant would therefore have been in a sorry state for 10 years, without anything really being done to improve the situation.
In their reports, the agents who visited the site in 2012 noted the presence of “son of moth (an invading butterfly) in different places”, and in particular in flour.
In 2014, we notice mold and rust. And in 2020, cobwebs would have invaded the ceiling of the bakery this time.
The agent also notes “flaking or missing paint in places”, “greasy and oily” production equipment, and “accumulated” dirt everywhere.
Each time, the inspectors issued a “continued warning” to Nestlé, the company that owns Buitoni, urging the multinational to take serious measures to “resolve hygiene issues”, according to a spokesperson for the DGCCRF.
A last check had taken place in 2021. It reported some improvements.
But the situation would have deteriorated again in 2022; last March, when the scandal broke, the inspectors returned to the site and observed “a marked deterioration in hygiene conditions”.
Production at the Caudry factory was halted by prefectural decree in April, and an investigation for “manslaughter and involuntary injuries” is still underway at the Paris prosecutor’s office.
