Company fined for food poisoning scandal

THE regional government of Castille-La Mancha has imposed a fine of 613'412 euros on Sada, the firm responsible for a food poisoning scandal which affected 2'700 people across Spain, including more than 100 in the Balearics. Sada, based in Lominchar (Toledo), produces ready cooked chicken under the brand name Pimpollo and Sada. The fine was for two offences, marketing products for human consumption contaminated with salmonella, failure to notify a change in the machinery used to add the sauce which contained the salmonella and a change in its components. The food poisoning was traced to a fault in the machinery which poured sauce onto the chicken, where a pipe had become contaminated.
The chicken was rapidly removed from the shelves but the number of cases continued to increase, and one person died.
Government spokesman Emiliano García Page said that the government had decided to impose the maximum fine possible because of the repercussions of the case. He added that it is a good way to transmit confidence to the market and to consumers.
He said that people could rest easy “because methods of control and inspection are serious and rigorous, and when a firm makes a mistake, an exemplary mechanism comes into operation.” The spokesman added that the company had collaborated with the regional government from the start of the outbreak, and said that high fines such as this, although isolated, demonstrate that “the control systems function very well.” He went on to say that when anything of this type happens, the government should not only penalise the fault, but transmit a message.
The fine was the highest ever imposed by the regional government, and Garcia Page said “people's health cannot be put at risk,” which is why it carries out strict controls and is strict when mistakes are made. There was no comment from the company, and nothing was said about compensation claims.