Orange with 6Medias, published on Monday, August 29, 2022 at 6:30 p.m.
The American group Mondelez, producer of cakes, has temporarily closed one of its French production sites following cases of contamination with salmonella were discovered in the Belgian factory of Barry Callebaut, main chocolate supplier of Mondelez and it also the stop.
After sunflower oil, pasta or mustard, it is cakes that might be in short supply in French supermarkets, according to information from Le Parisien, revealed on Monday August 29. Unlike other condiments, the war in Ukraine or the drought have nothing to do with this drop in production.
In question, the discovery of several salmonella contaminations in the Belgian chocolate factory Barry Callebaut, located near Brussels and reputed to be the largest in the world.
An alert that Mondelez, producer of cakes and customer of Barry Callebaut, took very seriously since the American industrial group had all of its production sites audited. That of Cestas, in Gironde, is for the time being closed, which makes “the subject of a deep cleaning and disinfection of the production lines, as a precautionary measure, to guarantee the total safety of our biscuits”. On the Belgian side, production is slowly resuming but is not yet running at full speed since only three production lines out of 24 are operational in the chocolate factory.
Large surfaces are worried
The Barry Callebaut factory on the sidelines, Mondelez is at an impasse. “There are other supplierssays the group. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the capacity of Barry Callebaut’s Belgian plant.”
A dead end that is also felt in supermarkets, which are starting to run out of certain popular cakes such as Granola, Pim’s, Pepito or even Mikado, all produced by Mondelez. “We had stocks in our plants and our stores but it ended up running outwe are worried at System U. The rupture happens more or less quickly depending on the stores and the references. And it is likely to last because no date for the resumption of supplies has been communicated to us. If on the side of Barry Callebaut, we are considering a return to normal “in the coming weeks”the Swiss industrialist prefers to remain cautious in evoking a “unprecedented operation”. The supermarket snack aisle might therefore be sparse in the coming weeks.