Nestlé shuts down Buitoni plant in France a year after E.coli outbreak

Nestlé padlocked its Buitoni factory in France. This is the same facility where the E.coli outbreak took place last year.

The Swiss food and beverage manufacturer closed down the site a year after the contaminated pizza products made in the facility caused a health scandal. Nestlé announced that it would halt the operations at the said plant, which employs about 120 workers.

With the closure, the company’s management said it would provide job placement offers to employees who will lose their jobs as a result of the shutdown. Then again, Nestlé said it would not terminate the workers soon, but they will be let go before this year ends.

The Buitoni plant manufactures frozen pizza, but sales of this product fell sharply after the E. coli outbreak. At that time, the operations were temporarily suspended, but the French authorities launched a probe into the pizza contamination after one person died.

Reuters reported that the investigation went deeper as there were also 14 individuals who were injured, plus various violations of food safety requirements were discovered. The breach was later linked to the E.coli outbreak at the plant.

Local French media reported that two children died and dozens of people fell ill after consuming frozen pizzas that were manufactured at the Buitoni facility located in Caudry, in the northern part of France.

Now, in closing the plant, Nestlé released a short statement saying, "The plant was facing sales forecasts well below the volumes that had been expected when the plant reopened in December."

At any rate, France’s Le Monde reported that the presence of E.coli was detected in the dough of a certain batch of frozen pizzas. The organism was suspected of having caused the death of two children while poisoning 50 other people.

Photo by: Nestle/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)