Salmonella: positive - this is what the Bonn company Vita Natura informed the city's food control department about in the early morning of 13 January. During a self-control, a batch of "organic nettle seeds" had turned out to be contaminated. Vita Natura had sold the alleged "superfood" through its own online shop as well as reselling it nationwide through wholesalers and pharmacies. "Due to existing health risks", the food supplement specialist recalled its product on 14 January. But a whole week passed before a broad public and presumably also some of the affected customers found out about it: It was not until 21 January that the state internet recall portal lebensmittelwarnung.de published a notice. This was also sent to journalists by e-mail and triggered media coverage - seven days after the recall.

The case from Bonn reveals many weaknesses in official food monitoring: thin staffing, bureaucratic procedures - and duty times that are not adjusted even in an emergency. How did the delay in consumer information come about?

Intensive enquiries with the authorities involved reveal a picture of the procedures. On 13 January, the food control office of the city of Bonn received the laboratory results of the company. According to the office, on that Thursday and the following Friday, it had to issue several orders to ensure that the company provided the requested information, carried out the recall quickly and informed its direct customers - and not just in the slowest possible way, by post, as the city initially intended. An enquiry to Vita Natura about the procedures remained unanswered.

The city of Bonn does not require the company to send out a press release. Such a press release could have triggered media reports earlier and thus reached more people than a small text on the website of the little-known supplier - especially customers who had not bought a possibly contaminated product directly from Vita Natura but from a pharmacy. And the report on the state warning portal on the Internet, which is intended for exactly this purpose, is also a long time coming.

Although the municipal authorities assume that there is a "health hazard", nothing happens from Friday afternoon onwards. The office closes at 2 p.m. There is no emergency or on-call service for the afternoon and the weekend. "I have already suggested this, but it is not wanted," says official veterinarian Uda Erbe, head of the Bonn food control. The city would have to order a weekend service and pay the staff for stand-by times.

So the officials only inform the North Rhine-Westphalian State Office for Nature Conservation, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV) about the recall after the weekend - apparently after reviewing new information from the company. The "LANUV" is responsible nationwide for posting recalls on lebensmittelwarnung.de. What consumers need to know to protect themselves in such a situation is not much: the name of the product, the batch affected, the reference to the suspected salmonella. Why did the LANUV not immediately publish what it knew in order to quickly warn affected customers? The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Consumer Protection, to which the state office is subordinate, answers this with the lack of a formally correct, "separate recall letter (e.g. in the form of a pdf or Word file)", as it is also posted in the trade. Without such a notice from the responsible company, recalls would "usually not be posted on the portal". The fact that essential information had long been available was not sufficient for the LANUV.

Vita Natura sent the final notice to the city of Bonn two days later, in the afternoon of 19 January. The following day, the office is understaffed. "Due to the staffing and corona situation", only one person from the food control department was "present in the office" on 20 January, the city administration says. Only on 21 January does it forward the document to the LANUV, and finally the state authority posts the notification on lebensmittelwarnung.de. This triggers the dispatch of a press release and notices in the social media - a health-relevant piece of information thus reaches a wider public, with a week's delay. This would have been possible much earlier.

At the beginning of last week, the all-clear was finally given in the case of stinging nettle seeds: the Bonn food authority had sent a sample of the product to a state laboratory for testing - but could not confirm salmonella contamination. So was it all a false alarm? Regardless of this question, the case shows one thing: In order to inform consumers as quickly as possible about a health hazard in an emergency, the procedures in the authorities have fallen short so far.

If a food product has to be recalled due to a health hazard, the responsibility for warning consumers lies with the company. The food offices monitor the measures and order more if necessary. In order to provide information quickly and in a bundled manner, authorities also indicate recall actions nationwide on the platform www.lebensmittelwarnung.de. Although an e-mail newsletter for the warnings was already firmly agreed between the federal and state governments at the start of the platform in 2011, it still does not exist today. In its coalition agreement, the new federal government announced a revision of the platform, but has not yet given any details. More and partly faster information on recalls is available on the private websites www.produktrueckrufe.de and www.produktwarnung.eu.

Disclosure: The author was executive director of the consumer organisation foodwatch until early 2021.

Original text: Martin Rücker - Translation: Mareike Graepel