 The scare forced Cadbury to withdraw a million chocolate bars |
Confectionery giant Cadbury Schweppes has raised the estimated cost of a salmonella outbreak earlier this year at one of its plants from �20m to �30m. A salmonella scare in June forced the company to take more than a million chocolate bars off UK shelves.
Cadbury said 2006 had seen strong sales across most of its businesses, offset by problems in the UK and Nigeria.
It said there had been a "significant" overstatement of finances at its 50%-owned subsidiary, Cadbury Nigeria.
Cadbury Nigeria is now set to report operating losses of �5m-�10m in 2006 and make a one-off exceptional charge of �55m-�60m to cover the overstatement.
Health scare
In a trading update, Cadbury Schweppes said its sales performance for 2006 was set to meet previous guidance, which estimated revenue growth of 4%.
Cadbury's UK business suffered a blow when it withdrew a million bars of chocolate from sale in June after a pipe at its plant in Marlbrook, Herefordshire, caused salmonella contamination.
The company had previously estimated that this would cost the firm �20m, but said it had raised this to �30m "reflecting higher manufacturing and facility rectification and remediation costs".
However, it noted that sales in the UK were improving in the run-up to Christmas, with recently-launched products such as Cadbury Melts and Flake Dark performing well.
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