In a pickle

London — In the UK, if your product ends up poisoning a man’s wife then you’re in deep trouble. If it poisons his child you’re in much deeper trouble. But if it poisons his cat or dog, then you’d better shut up shop fast and leave the country.

These words of wisdom, some years ago, from an Australian industry guru at the Institute of Packaging came to mind with the latest twist in the Cadbury saga (story link below).

For managers of any company that supplies products for human (or even animal) consumption it is a given that you must cover every conceivable angle towards ensuring consumer safety. From the catalogue of failings in operating, maintenance, testing and quality control procedures listed at Birmingham Crown Court it is clear that these basic principles were overlooked at Cadbury.

And, while Cadbury has stated that it has introduced measures to rectify all the above issues, it is still not clear how it allowed its operations to get into such a pickle in the first place.

Reader Comment:

William Redman (Please do not quote my current company)

Bad management and driving costs down at all costs make these things happen.

Obviously they didn’t do and act on appropriate HACCP analysis, which would have generated the appropriate control measures.

12 years ago I used to work for another well-known chocolate manufacturer as a maintenance manager and it was drummed into us; Safety, Hygiene, Quality, Quantity, then and finally cost. But we had to get them all correct.

The managers at Cadbury seem to have forgotten what they were responsible for. Cocoa beans come from Third World countries and have chickens etc running around on them while they dry in the sun, they are potentially very contaminated before being roasted and processed into the chocolate we eat. A great deal of care is needed, they should have known.