Maadanot, Israel's biggestfrozen pastries manufacturer, issued a wide-scale recall of it products this week, citining possible contamination.
Dozens of the company's employees swept through groceries and major food chains across Israel, making sure none of the products suspected of being tainted with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria remained on the shelves.
Listeria is a gram-positive, non-spore forming, motile bacterium, considered one of the food industries biggest "enemies," because of its resistance to cold and even freezing temperatures.
A Listeria infection – Listeriosis – manifests in the form of vomiting, nausea, stomach cramps, severe headaches, persistent fever, loss of balance and convulsions. Listeriosis has also been known to induce miscarriages and cause sepsis and meningitis.
Food chains have already reported a massive drop in frozen pastries goods' sales over the past few days. "The entire category will suffer, mainly because the consumers are confused," said an industry insider.
Maadanot dominates the frozen pastries market, with a 45% market share in the frozen pizzas and baked goods category.
'Consumers' good comes first'
The possibility of a contamination first came to light last week, after random product testing, routinely preformed by Maadanot, discovered trace amounts of the bacterium.
The company took immediate action and began recalling the contaminated brand: "Despite the fact that the bacterium was found in one of the smaller brands and only in trace amounts, we immediately initiated recall procedures," said Maadanot CEO Yaakov Yaari.
"Listeria is found almost everywhere," he added. "In the ground, in the water and in raw materials. We're waiting for further testing to tell us the origin of the contamination."
The bacterium is unlikely to survive the baking process, usually performed at 160 degrees Celsius (320 Fahrenheit), he added, "But the consumers' good comes first… We've undergone risk assessment and since we don’t know how the Listeria got in the system, we tested all of the product lines. We ultimately decided to be on the safe side and recalled all the products we thought may have been compromised."
Maadanot has already filed a report with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, predicting a loss of about $2.46 million in revenue.
The company has also suspended production entirely, despite not being ordered to do so by the Health Ministry.
"It's not about the monetary loss. All I care about is getting this thing cleared up and getting back to manufacturing safe products. Some things cannot be measured by money," said Yaari.
The Health Ministry offered the following: "All manufacturing activates at the Maadanot facility has been suspended. The ministry representative was present for the destruction of all compromised foods.
"The ministry is taking an active part in trying to locate the origin of the contamination. The facility will clear its return to regular production mode with the ministry."
Navit Zomer contributed to this report