A new food safety alert was issued on Thursday, 22 January, concerning two infant formula products from the Laboratoires Picot brand sold in Luxembourg. The warning refers to the possible presence of cereulide, a bacterial toxin. The recall has been classified at an orange alert level.
The warning concerns two specific products:
The products were distributed at several points of sale in Luxembourg.
These products are normally subject to very strict controls, as they are used for infants, either as a supplement to or a substitute for breast milk.
Cereulide is a toxic substance produced under certain conditions by a family of bacteria when they are reheated at temperatures insufficient to destroy them and then cooled. “The withdrawals and recalls currently organised by Nestlé and Lactalis are indeed linked to a raw material supplied by the same producer in China,” the French Ministry of Agriculture stated.
According to the consumer organisation Foodwatch, this producer is one of the few global suppliers of arachidonic acid (ARA), a highly regulated synthetic substance in Europe that is used in some infant formulas as a source of omega-6. The NGO announced on Wednesday that it is filing a complaint against persons unknown in order to “shed light” on these recalls, claiming that “millions of infants worldwide are affected”.
Luxembourg authorities recommend that consumers stop using the affected batches immediately and return them to the point of sale. The recall notice will remain posted until 29 January, but the products will remain non-compliant beyond that date.
Further information is available on the government’s food safety portal.
