Authorities in Germany have alerted the public to the suspected contamination of a single consignment of Italian Romaine lettuce, after reportedly discovering blue rat poison pellets in a shipment to sold via Frankfurt in the country's Rhine-Main area.
According to news agency DPA, the lettuce was from a bundle of 110 boxes – each containing 12 heads of lettuce – believed to have been sent by Ortofrutticola La Trasparenza, a supplier based in Angri near Salerno, in the southern Italian region of Campania.
The pellets were apparently found by a German wholesaler called özdemir Obst & Gemüse Großhandel based in Frankfurt Wholesale Market, who it is understood immediately withdrew the remaining unsold products from sale.
However, although 105 boxes are believed to have been destroyed, five were unaccounted for having been sold on to street market traders in the region – one of them at the Istanbul Market in Offenbach.
Germany's health ministry subsequently advised officials in both Campania and the northern Italian region of Veneto – via which the consignment was reportedly transported – to take preventative action.
'We cannot rule out the possibility that the contamination occurred in the German wholesaler's warehouse,' the ministry said in a statement. 'The detection was made as a result of self-checking and not as a result of an official check by the German authorities.'
The owner of La Trasparenza, Antonio La Mura, told Italian news agency Ansa the lettuce was not packaged and insisted he did not use rat poison.
'How can the Germans make these accusations?' he asked. 'I don't sell directly to Germany, only to the wholesale markets. There are intermediaries who take the goods to individual markets, in Italy and abroad, after storing it in their warehouses.'
The case is not the first time the town of Angri has made it into the news for the wrong reasons.
Police recently raided Aria, a key supplier to retailers including UK-based Asda, where they found tomato purée that had been imported from China and allegedly labelled as 'produced in Italy'.
According to a report published by British newspaper The Guardian, the laws on country of origin labelling had apparently been circumvented by adding water and salt prior to packaging the product.
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