Hospital and school food contaminated with listeria

Kent-based Anchor Catering , which produces up to 10,000 sandwiches a day, supplied products within the use-by dates subject to the listeria scare (21 February to 14 March) to schools, hospitals and local authorities across Kent, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex and Greater London before the problem was detected.

Dr. Andrew Wadge, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) chief scientist, said: “We are working closely with the company and the local authority to discover how this happened. Although the company took prompt action to notify customers and withdraw the product, large numbers of sandwiches may have been consumed before the problem was detected.”