Richester Foods’ lollipops cleared following sudden illness of 46 KZN pupils

The health department in KwaZulu-Natal’s Ilembe District is still languishing in the dark about the root cause of a sudden illness of about 46 pupils from Umbozane Primary School in KwaMaphumulo last week.

This is after on Wednesday, an independent testing of results officially cleared Richester Foods’ lollipops that were initially blamed for supposedly causing the illness.

Now the sweets company is urging health authorities to find the real cause of the health scare.

On Monday last week, pupils at the said school complained of severe abdominal pains.

A video went viral on social media showing distressed pupils crying with some lying on the floor of what looked like a hospital.

According to the provincial department, pupils were vomiting and some complained of stomach cramps.

Following the allegations, Richester Foods subsequently launched an immediate full internal investigation into the matter and submitted lollipops from the product batch in question for independent testing.

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“After performing a thorough microbiological analysis on the samples… independent laboratory KLM High-Giene Solutions has verified that the lollipops were free of any bacterial contamination or causes that could relate to ill health,” a statement from Richester Foods reads.

Richester Foods managing director Dr Hussein Cassim said that the results have also been shared with officials from the KZN Department of Health, as well as the National Consumer Council.

“Quality and food safety remain our top priority, and these test results have given proof to the strength of our hygiene and safety practises,” said Cassim.

“As we have noted previously, children are the very heart of our business, and we will not compromise on our manufacturing standards. Our lollipops have been firmly vindicated, and we hope that this will remove any lingering worries so that children and customers can once again feel free to enjoy our sweets without fear.”

He has since urged the department of health to look more closely into the matter to find the real cause of the children’s illness in order to prevent unfortunate incidents of this nature from happening in the future.