At the beginning of April, the Nord prefecture banned activity in the Buitoni factory in Caudry in the Nord after the health authorities announced that they had established a link between the consumption of Fraich’up pizzas and several serious cases of Escherichia coli contamination. A judicial investigation is underway in Paris, in particular for manslaughter and involuntary injuries.
But according to the Disclose site, the “breaches” of hygiene in this factory were not recent. In inspection reports dated 2012, 2014 and 2020, agents from the Departmental Directorate for the Protection of Populations (DDPP) in the North, attached to the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF), noted maintenance and cleaning faults in several rooms of the frozen pizza factory.
Mold, rust, cobwebs
In 2012, the DDPP already noted, among other things, “moth threads in different places”. In 2014, she spotted “mold” and “rust” in particular.
As of September 2020, the ceiling in the bakery is rated as “messy” with “a few cobwebs”. The paint is still “flaking or missing in places”, “the material is greasy and oily”, underlines the report, adding: in the trim room, the ventilation duct is “unclean” with “accumulated” dirt. The hood grilles are dirty. At the end, the inspectors had sent a “warning followed” to the Swiss giant of the food industry.
During a follow-up investigation in March 2021, inspectors acknowledged that the requested “action plan” had been put in place and “corrective measures were taken by the factory”.
On the other hand, a year later, during a new inspection, the inspectors noted “a very clear deterioration in hygiene conditions compared to September 2020 and March 2021. On March 18, Nestlé had closed two pizza production lines in his factory.