Production at the Ferrero factory in Arlon, Belgium, came to a halt in late June due to the presence of salmonella contamination. This incident occurred a year after the factory faced the same issue with its Kinder chocolate products.
"All production has been stopped," Laurence Evrard, a spokesman for the Italian food giant, said on Thursday.
She said the factory is "not closed" and the workers' salaries are "100% covered".
"We will continue to clean up for the next two weeks or so," Evrard added.
In a statement posted on its website on July 6, Ferrero said it was temporarily shutting down "some production lines" that started last week after salmonella was detected in "extended testing" by the team.
At the time, the company had no intention of stopping production completely.
While emphasizing that the suspension of production is a precautionary measure, the organization clarified that "any final product did not register a positive result" for contamination testing.
After dozens of reports of salmonella contamination in several European countries that may be related to the consumption of its chocolate products, Ferrero announced in April 2022 that it would cease production in Arlon and bring back all locally manufactured products. No deaths have been reported.
The Arlon plant underwent thorough inspection by the Belgian health authorities and was granted permission to resume operations under standard conditions in September.
Ferrero had to carry out extensive cleaning operations, invest in new pipes and carry out hundreds of quality checks before production resumed.
