More Cadbury bars tested for bug

Cadbury said it is testing product lines four times a day.

Food safety officials in Birmingham are testing a range of Cadbury's chocolate bars over fears more brands may be contaminated with salmonella.

Cadbury's removed one million bars across seven brands last week after traces of salmonella had been found in some chocolate.

Food safety teams from Birmingham City Council are now testing a range of Cadbury products for salmonella.

But a team spokesman said chocolate on sale in shops was safe to eat.

The 250g Dairy Milk Turkish, Dairy Milk Caramel and Dairy Milk Mint bars, the Dairy Milk 8 chunk and the 1kg Dairy Milk bar have been affected by the scare along with the 105g Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Egg and the Freddo bar.

Possible further contamination

Cadbury has blamed a leaking pipe at its Marlbrook plant, near Leominster, Herefordshire, for the salmonella contamination.

Gavin Tringham, from the city council's food safety team, said: "As result of the publicity last week and in cooperation with Cadbury's we are independently testing both current products lines and past product lines that have be returned.

"This is to ascertain if there is any contamination of current or past stock."

The testing is taking place as it emerged the mix used in the products that have been withdrawn was also the base ingredient in other confectionery.

A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency said it could not rule out that other products may be affected.

But Cadbury said it had tested tens of thousands of products and found no traces of salmonella.

It is continuing to test product lines four times a day.

Source: BBC News

The salmonella scare that forced Cadbury Schweppes to recall more than 1m of its chocolate bars would cost £20m and is also hitting sales, the group admitted today.

The chief executive, Todd Stitzer, said Cadbury's market share in the UK had fallen 1.1 percentage points over the past four weeks.

The overall market was also hit by the sweltering temperatures and fell 7% in July.

Cadbury lost £5m of sales because of the recall, which cost £7m after insurance. The full-year cost is put at £20m and Mr Stitzer said the impact on trading was still being monitored.

"We have apologised to our consumers, customers and colleagues for any concerns caused and are implementing changes to our UK manufacturing and quality assurance processes so that this cannot happen again," he said.

He stressed that the affected products accounted for less than 3% of UK sales and about half a percent of group sales.

Mr Stitzer said Cadbury, the world's largest confectionery company, would be stepping up its marketing activity significantly in the second half and introducing of a number of new products in the UK. These include a dark chocolate Flake, Cadbury Highlights Chocolate and Cadbury Melts.

News of the cost of the contamination, which Cadbury blamed on a leaking pipe at one of its main factories, came as Cadbury reported a 14% increase in underlying first-half profits, taking them to £402m before tax. Sales for the six months to the end of June rose by 4% to £3.2bn.

The figures were ahead of most analysts' expectations and Mr Stitzer said he expected to deliver full-year sales growth towards the top end of the group's target range.

He said that while there had been a "relatively slow" start to the year, with sales growth of 2% in the first quarter, this had increased to 5.5% in the second quarter.

On the drinks side, sales were 4.3% ahead, driven by strong growth in Dr Pepper and Sunkist.

In confectionery, sales rose by 3.4%. Excluding the impact of the product recall and inventory clearances earlier in the year, the figure was 5%, the group said.

Worldwide, sales of its leading chocolate brand, Cadbury Dairy Milk, grew by 7% over the first half. Gum was the group's fastest growing category with revenues ahead by 11%. Its biggest gum brand, Trident, grew 31%.

Five of the seven products affected by the recall have just returned to the shelves - Dairy Milk Turkish 250g; Dairy Milk Caramel 250g; Dairy Milk Mint 250g; Dairy Milk Eight Chunk; and Dairy Milk 1kg.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Buttons Easter Egg will not reappear until next year, and Cadbury Freddo will not be restocked.

Thanks for the update Geoff

Quote:The full-year cost is put at £20m and Mr Stitzer said the impact on trading was still being monitored.

That will certainly affect dividends