Mars Food UK Limited have issued a nationwide recall on a variety of their popular chocolate products following Salmonella detection. The recall affects products across the UK and Ireland including, but not limited, to Galaxy Minstrels, Maltesers Teasers and Galaxy Milk Bars. Thousands of chocolate products are possibly affected with fewer than 3000 potentially already sold to customers.

Mars have requested distributors to stop selling the products with immediate effect. The risk was discovered on the evening of Thursday 8^th June following laboratory testing at the UK Mars headquarters in Slough.

In a press release statement published on the 9^th June 2017 Mars said: "We have detected the possible presence of Salmonella from the ingredients used in making some of our GALAXY® products, including Smooth Milk Chocolate bars, MINSTRELS® and COUNTERS® and TEASERS® bars, whilst carrying out our routine testing process. A small number of these products have been distributed, and although we've had no related complaints, as a precaution we have made the decision to voluntarily recall the products potentially affected by this issue in order to ensure the safety and confidence of our consumers."

The best before dates of all affected products are in May 2018. However, UK supermarket Tesco have said to avoid customer confusion they will not be selling any of the affected products it had in stock regardless of the best before date for the time being to minimise customer confusion.

A Mars chocolate spokesperson said: “Through our routine testing, we have detected the potential presence of Salmonella from the ingredients used to make our chocolate. We are working closely with the relevant food safety authorities and our customers to ensure that the affected products are no longer available for purchase.”

The UK Food Standards Agency have advised consumers who have purchased any of the affected products not to eat them.

Mars UK Food Limited is a part of Multinational Mars Incorporated. In 2016 Mars issued a product recall in 55 countries following a customer detected plastic contamination of food products.