The confectionery manufacturer Ferrero is forced to shut down production at its Belgian factory due to cases of salmonella.
The supervisory authority Afsca announced on Friday that it would revoke the production license for the Arlon plant.
All products from the factory must be recalled.
A message from Ferrero France in Luxembourg now shows that Ferrero already knew about the salmonella case in the said factory in December.
This has recently been investigated by the Food Safety Authority.
According to the announcement, on December 15, Salmonella was found in a strainer at the outlet of two raw material tanks at the Arlon site.
The products made from it were then held back.
The filter has been replaced and controls on unfinished and finished products have been increased, Ferrero said.
The announcement does not explain why Ferrero did not recall the products already in circulation at the time.
In the past few days, the company has recalled products from its children's confectionery line in a number of countries - now also in the United States, according to a company announcement that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published on Thursday (local time).
The German market has also been affected by the recalls of the past few days, including selected batches of children's surprise eggs and children's chocolate bons as well as some Easter items.
Criticism of Ferrero's behavior
The company emphasized that these were purely precautionary measures.
Although none of the children's products have tested positive for salmonella, Ferrero takes the matter very seriously.
But the mere suspicion of a salmonella infection could have a negative impact on the expected lucrative Easter sales.
The consumer organization Foodwatch criticized the behavior of the confectionery manufacturer.
"If such a mistake happens, the population must be warned immediately," said Andreas Winkler from Foodwatch on Friday.
In his opinion, personal responsibility and self-monitoring by the manufacturers are not sufficient, "transparency obligations for authorities are necessary so that cases like Ferrero must be made public immediately."
Correlation between Salmonella cases and Belgian plant
The trigger for the recalls of the children's products were salmonella diseases that had become known in Great Britain and France at the beginning of the week.
In the UK, small children in particular were contracting salmonella, the PA news agency reported on Monday.
Shortly thereafter, Ferrero recalled some batches of Kinder Surprise Eggs.
The food safety agency said the recall had "a possible link to a salmonella outbreak."
In France, too, Ferrero recalled products at the beginning of the week after 21 cases of infection, according to the health authorities in Paris.
According to official information, it is genetically the same salmonella that is responsible for the outbreak in Great Britain and Ireland.
The affected children's chocolate products were all manufactured in the said factory in Arlon, Belgium.
By working with food and health authorities in Europe, Ferrero has received new data showing a match between the salmonella cases reported in Europe and its own plant in Arlon, the company said.
Other products recalled
On Thursday, Ferrero also extended its product recall in Germany to some Christmas items.
These include special surprise eggs and advent calendars, each with a best-before date of April 20, 2022, as can be seen from an overview published on Thursday on the Lebensmittelarning.de portal.
Only Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein are affected by the extension of the recall, according to the portal operated by the Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety and the federal states.
In Europe, the EU food safety authority EFSA and the EU health authority ECDC started investigations.
The two authorities had spoken of 105 confirmed salmonella cases and 29 suspected cases on Wednesday, most of them in children under the age of ten.
Certain chocolate products have been identified as a likely route of infection.