France Advises Stores to Shun Some Coke Products;
Tests Show No Anomalies
By Jacqueline Simmons
France Advises Stores Not to Sell Certain Coke Goods (Update1)
(Adds information about Pepsi in final paragraph.)
Paris, June 20 (Bloomberg) -- French officials are advising
stores not to sell some Coca-Cola Co. products even as initial
tests failed to turn up abnormalities in samples taken from a
plant in France amid a health scare that's spread across the
Continent.
French health and commerce officials late yesterday said
Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Fanta and Sprite drinks packaged in
metal cans at a Dunkirk plant in France shouldn't be sold or
consumed in France. Coke has traced a contamination that made
some consumers ill to carbon dioxide used at a plant in Antwerp,
Belgium, and a fungicide found on the outside of cans filled in
Dunkirk.
A government laboratory in Bordeaux, France, found ''no
traces of abnormalities'' on samples taken from the Dunkirk
plant. They didn't find traces of chemical products cited by Coca-
Cola Enterprises, Coca-Cola's largest bottler, that could have
caused the illness and said no traces of phenol were found on
palettes used to transport the drinks.
The government said investigations are continuing into cans
coming from Belgium and that a ban on the sale of some Coke
drinks destined for Belgium and Luxembourg remains intact.
Further studies are continuing on cans produced at Dunkirk and
destined for areas along the northern French border.
Some Coca-Cola drinks -- mostly sodas -- remain off store
shelves in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Coca-Cola is
working to provide health officials with information showing
there won't be a repeat of the contamination of drinks that made
about 200 people ill.
Coca-Cola Chairman Douglas Ivester flew to Europe to oversee
the company's efforts to persuade officials and consumers that
its beverages are safe and to contain the health scare.
Coke last week won government approvals to resume selling
drinks such as Nestea, Minute Maid and Bonaqua in Belgium, though
Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, Fanta Orange, Fanta Light, Sprite and
Sprite Light sodas remain banned.
France also allowed the sale of drinks bottled in Coke's
Marseille plant.
Meanwhile, PepsiCo Inc.'s five French factories were fully
operating yesterday, and they usually are shut on Saturdays,
according to Le Journal du Dimanche, a French weekend newspaper.
Its site at Saint-Alban-Les-Eaux in France's Loire region has
doubled its production since June 11. The site makes and fills
Pepsi bottles for the south of France.
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