Picture by Ansa
A housewife in Turin noticed something strange when she opened a packet of mozzarella – so strange, in fact, that she thought she would not be believed so she photographed the phenomenon on her mobile phone and sent the pictures to the police. The mozzarella had, in fact, turned blue upon contact with the air.
Hours later a consumer in Trento reported a similar blue tinge on the mozzarella she had bought. By this time police had sprung into action and, by the end of Saturday, they had confiscated 79,000 balls of the cheese. Meanwhile, the Italian Health Ministry had activated the European Rapid Alert system, which enables all countries in the EU to be warned quickly about possible food risks.
Samples of the contaminated cheese were sent to various laboratories for testing and results obtained so far indicate that the blue tinge was caused by a bacterium rather than a toxin. Results are consistent with the presence of metallic traces in the cheese or in the liquid used to preserve it.
The cheeses in question were made in Germany for an Italian company and distributed to discount supermarkets in northern Italy. Neither company has been named.
The farming organisation Coldiretti says that 60% of Italians regularly eat mozzarella and is calling for a law that would make it compulsory to indicate on cheese labels the use of non-Italian milk or milk powder. Producers of mozzarella dop [protected designation of origin] in Campania have been quick to emphasise that the mozzarella in question was not made from buffalo milk.
In Italy the contaminated cheese has been nicknamed “la mozzarella dei puffi” – “smurfs’ mozzarella”.
