240 boxes of salmonella-infected cornflakes unaccounted for
Unilever fears the missing cereal, which should have been recalled, has been sold to customers across Israel
Hundreds of boxes of salmonella-tainted cornflakes cannot be accounted for by manufacturer Unilever Israel, amid fears they have been sold in Israeli shops despite a widespread recall.
According to Channel 10 television, a Unilever inspection early Friday morning showed that 240 packets of the cereal are neither on supermarket shelves nor in storerooms, and are thought to have been sold by the Shufersal chain around the country. The boxes are reportedly from the same shipment as the tainted package that sparked the recall.
The company originally said that none of the affected products ever reached store shelves.
According to Channel 10, concerns about the missing cornflakes arose when a customer called Unilever’s hotline to say that she had purchased one of the recalled boxes. The company then contacted Shufersal, Israel’s largest supermarket chain, which apparently sold the box at its branch in Kibbutz Be’erot Yitzhak, in the center of the country.
The hasty inspection following the customer’s phone call revealed that there were no boxes from the shipment in question anywhere in the chain’s stores.
Unilever has already been accused of apparently trying to hide the bacterial contamination by secretly halting distribution of tens of thousands of cereal products.
The Ynet news site reported that the company had apparently not only stonewalled the media, but had also attempted to evade inquiries from the Health Ministry on the matter.
According to Channel 2 television, stores had been complaining for days of shortages in the international company’s cornflakes and Deli Pecan cereal. But the company initially denied there was a problem and attempted to downplay the issue when questioned by the media.
It was only after the press began reporting on the mysterious shortages that the company admitted that testing had revealed salmonella bacteria in an undisclosed (“not many”) number of boxes.
Unilever announced Thursday that worried buyers wishing to return the products could do so, even if they had been opened.
The Times of Israel Community.