Barry Callebaut’s Wieze factory to restart first chocolate production lines as of early August

Barry Callebaut has announced on 15 July 2022 that the cleaning of the chocolate lines affected by the entry of salmonella-positive lecithin in its factory in Wieze, Belgium, is progressing well. As a result, the first cleaned chocolate lines are foreseen to restart production as of early August 2022, with a gradual ramp-up to full capacity over the following weeks.

Barry Callebaut detected on June 27, 2022, at its Wieze factory in Belgium a salmonella-positive chocolate production lot and quickly identified a lecithin batch from a supplier as the root cause. In response, Barry Callebaut halted all chocolate production at the Wieze factory on 29 June, 2022, as a precautionary measure, which prevented affected chocolate products from entering the retail food chain. Barry Callebaut duly and proactively informed the Belgian Food Safety Authorities (FAVV) and is in continuous collaboration with them on this incident.

Food Safety is paramount for the Group and this is an exceptional incident. Not only does Barry Callebaut have a Food Safety charter and procedure in place, but also over 230 colleagues working on food safety and quality in Europe and over 650 worldwide. At the site in Wieze, employees are trained to recognize food safety risks. This allowed the teams to quickly identify the risk and initiate the root cause analysis.