Maltese consumers unaffected by UK chocolate recall

Over a million Cadbury chocolate bars were taken off the shelves in the UK over fears they were contaminated with salmonella but the Maltese importer said no advice was received to recall any products.

The British company said yesterday it had agreed to recall seven of its most popular products in the UK after consultation with the Food Standards Agency.

Paolo Bonnici Ltd, the local importers of Cadbury chocolate, said it has not received any advice from the company in the UK to recall any of the products.

The affected products are the 250g Dairy Milk Turkish, Dairy Milk Caramel, Dairy Milk Mint bars, Dairy Milk 8 chunk, the 1kg Dairy Milk bar, the 105g Dairy Milk Buttons Eater Egg and the 10pence Freddo bar. All these are available in Malta with the exception of the last three. When contacted, company manager Victor Zarb said that if there was any slight chance that the products in Malta could be affected they would have been informed immediately to pull them off the shelves.

"Millions of chocolate bars are produced each day so it could be one particular batch for UK consumption that was affected. We import our chocolates from Italy, but they're made in the UK. However, like I said, we have not heard anything from the main company," Mr Zarb said.

Reports in the British media quoted a Cadbury spokesman saying that "this [the recall] is being done purely as a precautionary measure, as some of the products may contain minute traces of salmonella".

"Cadbury has identified the source of the problem and rectified it and is taking steps to ensure these particular products are no longer available for sale. Cadbury expects to have fresh stocks of these products back on the market in the near future," the spokesman said.