Buitoni, Kinder, Lactalis… Why a new scandal is possible

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INVESTIGATION. One year after the contaminated pizza affair, what lessons have been learned? Are controls more effective in France? Experts are worried.

By Erwan Seznec and Emilie Trevert

Production resumed in mid-December at the Buitoni pizza factory in Caudry (Nord), which was shut down after serious cases of poisoning by the Escherichia coli bacteria.
© DENIS CHARLET / AFP

Published on 02/19/2023 at 5:00 p.m.

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AT Caudry (Nord), the employees returned to the Buitoni factory after ten months of forced stoppage. The machines are humming again but only production line number 2 is running. Line 1, intended for raw pasta, where the infamous Fraîch’Up pizza was produced – responsible for the contamination with E. coli bacteria of around sixty people and the death of two children – is still open. stop.

Refreshment and upgrading work – estimated at two million euros, according to our information – was carried out in this aging factory, the hygiene conditions of which had been denounced long before its closure by prefectural decree on April 1. .

An order, which followed two inspections, and which pointed to “serious anomalies in …