BIRMINGHAM, England, July 14 (UPI) -- The Cadbury company knowingly let salmonella contaminate its chocolate bars in order to save money, prosecutors in Birmingham, England, said.
Cadbury Schweppes officials are to be sentenced Monday for putting unsafe chocolate on the market and failing to alert the public to the dangers posed by the contamination, The Telegraph reported Saturday.
Thirty people became ill and three were hospitalized between January and June 2006 after the Birmingham-based company changed from a zero-tolerance policy to one in which food containing a low-level of salmonella was allowed to be sold, prosecutors said Friday in the Birmingham Crown Court trial.
"They sought to save money from wastage by allowing a tolerance for salmonella in their food," said prosecutor Barry Berlin.
Cadbury was forced to recall more than a million bars and chocolate Easter eggs infected by a leaking pipe in its factory in Marlbrook, Herefordshire, which dripped water containing the rare Montevideo salmonella strain on to a conveyor belt containing chocolate.
"We have apologized for this and do so again today," a Cadbury spokesman said Friday.
