Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry announced on Thursday that Schoko Bons, a chocolate product of the Kinder brand, will be partially recalled, after reports of a salmonella outbreak in Kinder Surprise eggs produced in Europe, media outlets reported.
The recall involves two shipments of the small chocolate eggs and only involves those with the expiration date of July 8, 2022, and July 15, 2022. The ministry said in a statement that salmonella has not been found in Kinder products in Turkey so far and that they were monitoring the process meticulously and running necessary inspections of imported products. The ministry said the recall was ordered after an "update on the situation in Europe" by European Union.
The ministry and Ferrero Turkey, which imports chocolate-covered plastic eggs, had earlier announced that there was no risk in imports from Europe so far, but the products would be subject to tight inspection.
According to a document dated April 15 and made public on Tuesday, the ministry ordered its branches in charge of inspecting food imports to run analyses for salmonella for all products related to Kinder eggs, regardless of their source of import or factories they are produced in. Earlier, Ferrero Turkey, the importer of Surprise eggs, had made a statement that only one model of eggs, Surprise Maxi, was imported from the Belgian plant of the company where the salmonella cases originated from. The statement also said the eggs currently on sale in the Turkish market were not manufactured on the dates related to the salmonella cases but that they would recall the eggs produced in Belgium as a safety measure. The ministry had issued a similar statement, saying that no imports from the batch of surprise eggs contaminated with salmonella were delivered to Turkey.
