Dive Brief:
- Indonesia, the island nation that houses some 12.7% of the world's Muslims, has begun testing Cadbury products to ensure they meet the religious dietary laws known as halal.
- Indonesia's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency said it expected to have results in about 10 days.
- The move comes days after authorities in neighboring Malalysia said they had found pig DNA in two brands of chocolate bars made by Cadbury.
Dive Insight:
No one seems to know for sure how pig DNA wound up in chocolate bars. Nor have the initial test results in Malaysia been duplicated yet.
That hasn't stopped people from blaming Cadbury, and its parent Mondelez International Inc. Nor has it prevented the spread of conspiracy theories across the Muslim world.
No doubt many of Indonesia's population welcome the government's inquiry. Consumers need to know what happened and how, and Cadbury needs to know the answers too. We expect that the company has deployed considerable resources to finding the truth.
We should all know more in about 10 days.
