Barry Callebaut
In June 2022, Barry Callebaut became aware of an isolated salmonella contamination issue at a factory in Belgium. The source of the contamination was quickly identified and it was confirmed the contamination did not affect any product outside of Europe. Below is the company's official statement:

Dear Valued Customer,

This letter is to inform you of a situation that we have in the Barry Callebaut factory in Wieze, Belgium.
 
On Monday, June 27, Barry Callebaut detected a salmonella positive on a production lot manufactured in Wieze. For Barry Callebaut, food safety is paramount. Our robust food safety programs allowed us to quickly identify lecithin as the source of the contamination.  

The lecithin has not been used in any production outside of the Wieze, Belgium factory and all implicated products are currently blocked and only physically present in Europe. No product has been exported outside of Europe. There is no impact on any product or production in North or South America.
 
As lecithin is used in all chocolate production lines in Wieze, we have taken the precautionary measure to stop all these lines and to block all chocolate products manufactured since June 25 (date of the contamination) while we continue the root cause analysis and risk assessment. 
 
Barry Callebaut informed the Belgian food authorities (FAVV) about the incident who were on site yesterday to review our root cause analysis and risk assessment. We will continue to update them on this incident. 
 
Please note there will be a delay on future orders of imported products from Belgium. We are assessing the supply chain impact, and we will update you as we know more.
 
For more information, please refer to the Q&A located on our website: https://www.barry-callebaut.com/en-US/group/media/news-stories/barry-callebaut-detected-salmonella-positive-production-lot-wieze.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and we trust that you understand our caution to minimize the impact and risk to your business, your customers and food safety in general.

Regards,

Stacey Popham
VP, Quality Assurance
Barry Callebaut Americas