By Entrepreneur Staff
A statement from FACUA-Consumidores en Acción reported that the Froneri ice cream factory in Spain—responsible for Nestlé, Milka, Toblerone, Nuii, Oreo, Princesa, La Lechera, and Smarties products—accidentally contaminated several batches with ethylene oxide, a gas used as an antifreeze that is flammable and has carcinogenic effects.From the Swiss multinational brand, there are 46 varieties of ice cream that have been withdrawn from the market due to this event. There is already a list with the affected lots, disseminated internally by the Carrefour, Dia, and Covirán chains, but they suspect that it is not complete because it is “part of Froneri product withdrawal alerts.”
Ingesting the gas, which is prohibited by the European Union, may pose a low health risk. The manufacturing company points out that the amount of ethylene oxide “is negligible in the final product,” less than the legal limit of 0.02 mg/kg, and that it does not do much damage. They have a website that tells you if the batch of ice cream you bought could be contaminated or not.
The factory explained that “there is no product category affected in its entirety and not all products produced under the same batch number are necessarily affected. The same batch has several ranges of products, some of which used the affected stabilizer and others don’t.”
