Health Ministry director general Prof. Nachman Ash has announced that the quality standard of the Strauss Group Ltd. (TASE:STRS) Elite factory in Nof Hagalil has been suspended for three months. He was speaking after a tour of the plant by senior Ministry of Health officials in the wake of the discovery of salmonella in samples of products produced there.
Prof. Ash said, "The significance (of the suspension) is that they cannot manufacture and market their products. This quality standard is required by factories of this size.
He added, "We came here this morning, a team of senior officials from the Ministry of Health, to examine the possible flaws that led to the slipup on the production line. We will continue this investigation and depending on the results of the laboratory tests and many checks made in a lot of places. The factory is undergoing a rapid learning process. At the same time there are decisions that must be taken and there is here a process that must be done to make the factory fit for production once more.
"We decided to suspend the quality standard of the factory for three months. The quality standard will be restored after we ensure the full lessons have been learned, all the procedures completed and we can be certain not only that the production line is clean of contamination but there won't be contamination in the future. There are many conclusions that the factory must draw in order for the production line to operate again."
Yesterday Strauss announced that following two positive results in tests for salmonella in two chocolate products sold to retail stores, it was expanding its recall to all products of the factory affected: Elite chocolate, Elite cakes, Elite waffles, Energy snack bars, Energy chocolate covered rice crackers, chewing gum and soft sweets, with all expiry dates. The company reported to the Ministry of Health that there was suspected salmonella in two individual samples of two chocolate products, out of 270 samples of products that were checked and went out to stores.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on April 28, 2022.
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