Following scandal, CEO of dairy firm meets lawmakers

THE contamination of baby milk with salmonella at a Lactalis factory in France last year was an accident and the dairy group took the necessary steps to prevent more babies falling ill, the company’s CEO told lawmakers in a rare public appearance.

Lactalis, the world’s largest dairy group, recalled millions of tins of baby milk in France and around the world, and halted production at its Craon plant in northwest France after dozens of babies fell ill last year due to drinking salmonellacontaminated milk.

The scandal, which deepened when errors in the massive product recall left some potentially contaminated baby milk on shop shelves, fueled criticism of poor communication by Lactalis.

In a sometimes tense exchange with members of a parliamentary committee investigating the contamination, softly spoken Emmanuel Besnier apologized for the distress caused to families but defended his group’s safety record.

“Regarding the handling of the crisis, I think at each stage we took the necessary measures to ensure that no baby would fall ill in relation to our products,” Besnier, said yesterday to the committee of lawmakers from France’s National Assembly.

Lactalis reiterated previous comments that tests of its products had not shown any salmonella prior to the recall and that the contamination was linked to work in the factory that released bacteria hidden in the structure of the building.

“It was an accident, no one is responsible for this at the factory,” Besnier, who appeared alongside four other senior Lactalis managers, said.

The cases of babies falling sick were all before the start of the product recall in late 2017, which Lactalis triggered as soon as it was informed by the authorities of a link to its Craon factory, he said.

“It is not the contamination that is on a large scale, it is the product recall,” he said.

The CEO’s comments irritated several lawmakers who said the group failed to explain fully the events and had understated the seriousness of the crisis.

“When you feed many of the world’s children it is your duty to communicate,” Gregory Besson-Moreau, the parliamentary committee’s rapporteur, said.