Lactalis has filed a claim for damages totalling 1.07 billion euros against the laboratory service provider Eurofins. According to Lactalis, the laboratory incorrectly found that salmonella was present in Lactalis baby milk powder, which led to a costly scandal surrounding these products in 2017. “Two subsidiaries of Eurofins are liable for damages for failing to detect the contamination of products with salmonella,” reads the complaint filed by Lactalis with the Commercial Court in Paris. Lactalis and Eurofins declined to comment.
Emmanuel Besnier, CEO of the dairy company, expressed serious doubts about the reliability of the tests underlying the scandal back in 2018. “We never understood how 16,000 analyses carried out in 2017 could never reveal a problem,” he said.
Due to the alleged contamination, Lactalis had to recall large quantities of baby milk powder produced at the Craon plant from the market worldwide in 2017.
