Israeli Health Ministry findings: Pigeons in Strauss plant but no Food Safety Manager
May 1, 2022 - from the Jerusalem Post:
"A Health Ministry investigation into the Strauss-Elite production facility has found several problems with the company’s procedures and conduct, all of which could have been a contributing factor to the discovery of salmonella in the factory and the largest product recall in Israeli history early last week.
"The following issues were listed in the Health Ministry report as the main areas in which the company was found deficient:
- "Maintenance work in the plant: In recent months, maintenance work had been carried out in the production facility, along with chocolate production. The company did not take into account the risk that this could pose to the production process and the potential of the construction work to introduce contaminants into the ingredients.
- "Pigeons in the facility" During the Health Ministry’s investigation, the company confessed that several weeks earlier, there had been an intrusion of pigeons into the production facility. While they said an exterminator was immediately called to the factory and the issue was resolved, the correct tests were not carried out to ensure that no contaminants had been left behind by the birds, which are known to carry a variety of bacteria in their droppings.
- "No Food Safety Manager: The investigation revealed that the professional quality-control team at the factory had been replaced in the last year, and as a result, there had been no food-safety manager at the plant for the last several months, indicating that the quality-control and safety system in the Strauss-Elite factory was lacking.
- "Salmonella warnings went unchecked: Another point of concern discovered by the Health Ministry was information that a factory worker had reported an indication that there were higher-than-permitted levels of salmonella in the raw-chocolate ingredients. The complaint was not dealt with by the plant at the time, and no tests were carried out to confirm whether the indication was correct.
- "Unsafe thawing processes: The final issue reported by the Health Ministry in the preliminary investigation was that the facility had not been following the correct procedures regarding the thawing and storing of milk fat, a key ingredient in the production of milk chocolate. This, too, could have led to the salmonella contamination in the production line.
- "The Health Ministry’s head of Public Health Services, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, on Sunday addressed the report findings in a video statement. As a result of the findings, the Health Ministry had decided to suspend Strauss’s production license for a three-month period or until the issues noted in the investigation have been corrected to meet the approved standard, she said.
- "Furthermore, the Health Ministry has run tests on 300 different samples from finished products that had not yet reached the shelves so far and detected salmonella in 10% of them, she said. Until now, no products removed from the stores have been found to contain the bacteria, although the testing is still underway."
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Strauss CEO Admits: "We Had Pigeons In The Factory, We Were Warned But Didn’t Listen"
April 28, 2022 - from VinNews:
"The heads of the Strauss Group company held a press conference on Thursday evening and admitted to shocking revelations regarding the company’s operations in the wake of the salmonella finding and the largest recall in Israeli history. The conference follows the Health Ministry’s announcement on Thursday morning that the factory’s license has been removed for at least three months.
"CEO Eyal Dror said: 'We recently renovated the factory and it wasn’t carried out according to proper regulations. About a month before the salmonella was discovered, there were pigeons in the liquid chocolate factory. We work with serious pest control companies but proper work regulations were not upheld. Several times we received indications from one of our customers that there were some anomalies in the products. We didn’t check into it and that’s not okay. We should have behaved differently.'"