In a survey broadcast this Saturday on France Inter, factory employees claim that since 2015, production time has practically doubled while cleaning time has drastically decreased.
Nestlé France said on Saturday that the time spent cleaning production lines at the Buitoni factory in Caudry (Nord), at the heart of a health scandal, had not changed since “the internalization of cleaningin 2015, reacting to employee statements released by France Inter.
«At the end of each production cycle, the lines are completely stopped and cleaned according to a strict process lasting 4 hours and 45 minutes, including a cleaning phase, then disinfection and finally rinsing with water, the effectiveness of which is controlled by systematic microbiological sampling in different strategic areas of the site“, told AFP a spokesman for the group. In a survey broadcast Saturday on France Inter, employees of the Caudry pizza manufacturing plant claim that since 2015, production time has practically doubled while cleaning time has drastically decreased, going “from 8 a.m. to 4:45 a.m.” per day.
An open judicial inquiry
If Nestlé does not dispute this duration, it affirms that the actual time devoted to cleaning has not varied: before 2015, an external service provider was responsible for cleaning, carried out between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., with a team of five people; since the internalization, at least ten people have been assigned to cleaning, over a shorter period, it was explained. This Buitoni factory in Caudry is at the heart of one of the worst health scandals in recent years in France.
On March 18, Nestlé had closed two production lines. On April 1, the Nord prefecture banned the activity of the Caudry factory, after the health authorities announced that they had established a link between the consumption of Fraich’Up pizzas and several serious cases of contamination by the bacterium Escherichia coli. . These pizzas are suspected of having caused the death of two children. Judicial information was opened in particular for manslaughter and involuntary injuries, as well as the marketing of a product dangerous to health and endangering others.
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In mid-July, the boss of Nestlé France Christophe Cornu had presented his “excusesto the families of children affected by contamination and announced the creation of a “victim support fundin an interview with Figaro.