According to French media reports, maggots have been found in the famous French baby milk powder Gallia. In three years, there have been more than 110 complaints about the brand's milk powder, but they have been ignored.

The Lactalis group, France's largest dairy company, was formally indicted this year after five years of salmonella-tainted milk powder. After identification, experts pointed out that the bacteria in this production line have actually been "resident" for more than 10 years!

01 Baby milk powder found maggots "still move"

According to Le Parisien, on Friday (July 21), Zoubida, a young mother who lives in Essonne, Greater Paris, was nearly scared out of her mind when she was infusing milk powder for her six-and-a-half-month-old daughter - there were bugs in the newly bought Gallia milk powder.

"I opened the lid, suddenly found a black spot, took a spoon to touch it, it will move!!" Shocked, Zoubida poured out the milk powder to see clearly, "it was a maggot..." Then a second one was found in the milk powder can...

Zoubida has just changed the formula for her half-year-old daughter for the second time, and it is the first time she has bought the Kaila brand. Now she recalled that in the past few days, her daughter always vomited milk, and vomited everywhere, she thought that her daughter was not adapted to the new milk powder.

Zoubida immediately reported the incident on the official website of the government's health ministry and contacted Danone, which owns the brand.

02 110 complaints received no response in 3 years

Zoubida's surprise was that she was not the first to find bugs in Calea milk powder. In 2020, nine parents sued Jianya, all of whom found bugs in milk powder cans.

However, there was "no follow-up", says Quentin Guillemain, president of the French Association for Children's Health Rights. "What's even scarier is that it's still going on!"

Guillemain said, "In three years, we have received 110 similar complaints. These parents all found bugs in the brand's milk powder."

Guillemain revealed in an interview with Franceinfo in 2020 that they had collected more than 20 substantiated complaints between early 2019 and early 2020.

The most recent complaint received by the association's dedicated "Jiaja victim email address" was in November last year, but before that, similar complaints were received "almost every month."

"Parents send in photos and videos that show larvae and long adult worms," Guillemain fumed. "It's time to take action."

In fact, as early as 2020, French media has revealed that there are bugs in Jielya milk powder. March 2020, a mom? lodie told Le Parisien that her 3-month-old daughter, Ylonna, suddenly fell ill, crying and losing weight, with a high fever and couldn't find a cause at the emergency room. Until one day the nanny called her, saying that her little girl had just vomited milk, and found that she had vomited a "6 to 7 cm long" worm on her bib...

03 Compensation: A new can of milk powder

According to Franceinfo, Florence, who lives in the Occitane region, discovered the bugs in the Calea milk before Elodie did.

On January 8, 2019, Florence found a live worm in the bottom of a can of Carina milk powder that was running low. She immediately sent an email to Jia Jia, but nothing.

So she went to the pediatrician and soon after, the manufacturer called her and asked her to send the worm and the can of milk powder back to the group's laboratory for testing.

Three weeks later, the lab had a result: the bugs had nothing to do with the manufacturer.

"They told me it was an 'isolated case,'" Florence said. "They said it was either the transporter's fault, the retailer's fault or my own negligence."

While Florence was still trying to remember what she had not done well, Brittany, the Rhone, the Var... Similar news came out of many places, between January and March 2019, a total of more than 20 cases were found, and a number of families launched lawsuits to Jia Jia. Florence joined the suit.

It wasn't long before Florence received an offer from the milk company to pay for a new can of Calea baby formula. Florence refused without hesitation, but in the end it was Calea who sent her a Carrefour voucher.

04 Measures: Strengthen the sealing degree of the jar

In response to multiple lawsuits, the company released a test result in 2020 that found "no traces of insects."

The lab shared the report on social media, saying, "Since receiving the first notification, we have inspected more than 100,000 cans of milk powder immediately; And in the presence of court bailiffs, a spot check of 9,000 cans of milk powder was carried out."

The report concluded that "no non-compliance or unexpected issues were identified either on the production line or in the potentially problematic batch".

In 2020, Danone said that the group immediately strengthened the tightness of milk powder cans, "wrapping a protective film around the lid" and "using transport boxes to ensure food safety."

That was the end of the matter. On Friday, July 21, two more maggots were found in Zoubida, Esson province.

05 Five years after the tainted milk powder case, the number one dairy company was finally sued

In February this year, France's largest dairy group Lactalis (also known as Lactalis) was formally indicted over the tainted milk powder case that broke out five years ago, AFP reported. In early July, the judge announced the "three deadly crimes" against the group.

The Lantris Group, which owns President cheese and butter, Lactel milk and other well-known brands, surpassed Danone Group last year with a turnover of more than 28 billion euros, becoming the largest food processing group in France and the Top 10 in the world. Five years ago, however, the group's infant formula sickened at least 37 children with salmonella.

At the end of 2017, more than 10 young children infected with Salmonella were treated in several places in France after drinking two brands of Milumel and Picot milk powder from Lantris. The milk powder was produced by Celia Laiterie, a dairy company based in the northwestern city of Craon. At least 37 babies were eventually found to be victims.

The group's boss, Emmanuel Besnier, was detained and questioned in October 2019 but has not been pursued since. He explained that "factory construction in early 2017" may have caused the infection of the bacteria.

06 Having resident strain, Lactalis was charged with three crimes

However, the fact is that in 2005, the Krone factory has been exposed to Salmonella milk powder, which caused 146 babies to be infected that year. But Celia Dairy had not yet been acquired by the Lactalis Group.

An October 2022 inspection report provided to the court by the Institut Pasteur concluded that "between 2005 and 2017, bacteria were consistently present in the production lines of Krone" and that Celia Dairy "may have resident strains in one or more of its production lines."

The researchers said treating infections at one time as a single event was a "highly inappropriate" approach. According to the report, this is a series of consequences caused by the "gradual deterioration" of the hygiene management of the production line.

According to the report, Celia Dairy "lacked awareness and even a clear understanding of the frequent signals of production safety lapses."

The court's first charge against the group was that it had "failed to take the necessary steps to get to the root cause of the problem or to correct it" after it emerged in 2017.

The second count was "serious fraud", in particular concealing the "inherent risk" of production at the Krone factory.

This leads to the third sin, that the group "did not take immediate recall measures" despite "reasonable belief that these batches posed a health risk."

On December 2, 2017, health authorities issued a recall notice for 12 batches of milk powder produced by the factory. A few days later, the Ministry of Economy also published a batch list of the recalled milk powder and banned the consumption or export of the milk powder.

However, it was not until mid-January 2018 that the Lactalis Group recalled all infant milk powder produced by the Seria Dairy plant, and the Seria dairy plant ceased production for six months.

In February, Fabrice Collier, the group's legal director, argued to a judge that "Lactalis has never knowingly placed an infected product on the market." He also said that the group "shares with the victims" and "expects the cause and source (of the infection) to be identified."