Wizman Yaar Investigations today published a report of its findings in the Unilever cornflakes contamination affair. The report said that an employee in the Telma plant had caused the distribution of cornflakes contaminated with salmonella to supermarket chains by sending the contaminated pallets to supermarkets.
The investigation was conducted at Unilever's request. Wizman Yaar assembled a team, which found that a Logisticare employee (whose particulars are known to the company) had marked the contaminated pallets. "The warehouse is operated and managed by Logisticare employees; Unilever employees do not work there," the report stated.
The report indicated that the delivery system at the breakfast cereals plant was designed to prevent such errors, since a pallet that has not undergone laboratory tests could not be marked. "Any attempt to mark the pallet for distribution using a portable terminal before the laboratory tests are completed will be blocked," the Wizman Yaar report stated.
Wizman Yaar noted that the pallet had been spotted as suspicious at an early stage, and it therefore could not have been used. "It was therefore marked with an 'S' in the SAP system, meaning that it was removed from the inventory and marked for throwing out. The pallet, of course, was still blocked from distribution, and any attempt to mark it using the portable terminal will be blocked, as previously described."
The report continued, "Activity conducted in the warehouse gave the pallet marked for throwing out a 'new identity' through which it was distributed, although it should have remained blocked in the warehouse." In other words, the system in effect identified the contaminated pallet, but replacement of the labels caused its distribution to the supermarkets.
The investigation firm accuses a specific employee, whom it identified through the portable terminal he used. The report states, "The employee confirmed that if the records said that he worked with the portable terminal, then this was indeed the case, and that he had accessed the portable terminal through a personal code known only to him, which he had given to no one else."
Wizman Yaar concluded that this employee had prepared the pallet suspected of contamination for delivery to Shufersal Ltd. (TASE:SAE), despite its being blocked "under the assumption that the block would be removed within a few days, as was usual in the warehouse. " The investigators added that the other employees in the plant were not sure that this pallet was suspected of being contaminated by bacteria.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 10, 2016
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