We all know chocolate is not exactly a healthy option, but nonetheless, you wouldn't exactly expect or desire a chunk of Dairy Milk to give you a "sudden onset of nausea, abdominal cramping, and bloody diarrhoea with mucous".

These are a few of the delightful symptoms of a Salmonella infection. An outbreak of this illness affecting over 40 people was being investigated by the Health Protection Agency when it turned out that Cadbury knew that they had a Salmonella problem in one of their factories in Marlbrook back in January. This was caused by a waste water pipe developing a leak and outputting bits of filth into the product.

Cadbury's may not have done anything especially illegal, in that they claim the levels of contamination - currently 0.3 cells per 100g of chocolate crumb - were way below what most people would regard as levels that would be dangerous enough to cause an alert. Even so, the Government's Food Standards Agencywere not so happy and said that "Our assessment is that there's a risk", citing the fact that the contamination may not be equally distributed through the chocolate, and that unlike the traditional carriers of the infection like eggs, chocolate is not generally cooked by the consumer before eating. They are to investigate why Cadbury took 6 months to let this problem be known.

Following pressure from the FSA, Cadburys has gone on to issue a recall of the affected products. Local authorities have been requested to alert shopkeepers to stop selling them until new stocks can be found, so beware low choccy-stocks for the immediate future if you are brand-particular.

The recalled products are

• Cadbury Dairy Milk Turkish 250g
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel 250g
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Mint 250g
• Cadbury Dairy Milk 8 Chunk
• Cadbury Dairy Milk 1kg
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Button Easter Egg-105g
• Cadbury Freddo 10p

It is estimated that this will be around a million bars to recall. If you have any of these, then if you can possibly resist their sweet goodness you should post them to:

Cadbury Recall,
Freepost MID20061,
Birmingham
B3O 2QZ,

for a refund, or ring 0800 818181 for more information.

For anyone presently sick with worry, rather than Salmonella, Cadbury's have stated that "If there are people who have eaten one of these chocolate bars today they should not worry, but they can get in touch with us if they are concerned for a full refund.". Presumably you should send the contents of your stomach to the above address and if they match the Dairy Milk profile they will send you back the 40p you paid to eat it in the first place for your trouble.