Italians tucked into their pasta on Wednesday with a little less relish than usual after learning that 58 000 tonnes of wheat infected with a powerful natural toxin had been milled into flour and sold on to the market.
Police arrested Francesco Casillo, the director of the Molino Casillo Francesco, on Wednesday on charges that he imported the wheat from Canada last September which was contaminated with cancer-causing toxins.
Consumer associations and manufacturers of wheat products clamoured to know what had happened to the consignment before it was released on to the market. In Bari, on the east coast, where it entered Italy, a spokesperson for the local consumers federation said: ”It is unacceptable that such a mountain of grain should have been allowed to damage the health of unwitting consumers.”
A statement from the Italian pasta manufacturers association said Italian pasta was ”absolutely safe and innocuous”.
According to media reports, the contaminated wheat was sold to millers in the Apulia and Emilia-Romagna regions. But no information had been released by Wednesday night on which companies had used the resulting flour or for which products.
Italians consume vast quantities of wheat, often eating a panino (bread roll) with their pasta. The Italian bakers’ association said it had advised members to demand immediate guarantees of provenance from suppliers and to suspend production if they were not forthcoming.
Several commentators said they were dismayed that it had taken more than three months for the scandal to come to light. The wheat, from Canada, entered Italy at the end of September and was blocked by guards who found traces of Ochratoxin A, a toxin produced by mould.
Prosecutors said the cargo was released two weeks later after Casillo (38) who was expecting the delivery, produced reports from independent laboratories showing there was no danger.
It was not until mid-December that prosecutors in the town of Trani ordered the recall of the wheat after learning that the findings of an official analysis showed the level of Ochratoxin A in the consignment was three times the permitted maximum.
Ochratoxin A attacks the kidneys and has been linked to birth defects. – Guardian Unlimited