Danone's Nutricia Karicare baby formula, one of the products recalled after the recent Fonterra contaminated whey scare.
French food giant Danone says it will lose more than half a billion dollars in sales in the current financial year as a result of Fonterra's botulism false alarm.
The Paris-based company's infant formula products were recalled in eight countries, including New Zealand and China, after Fonterra wrongly suspected that
38 tonnes of whey protein, had been contaminated with a botulism-causing bacterium.
Danone was hardest hit in China, where consumers remain highly sensitive to food safety scares following the 2008 melamine scandal, when six babies died and thousands more became sick after consuming dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical.
In New Zealand, Danone-owned Nutricia had to recall 67,000 cans of its Karicare infant formula brand.
The company said the incident would have a "significant impact" on its 2013 results, with full-year lost sales estimated at 350 million euro (NZ$562.2 million) and lost margin estimated at 280 million euro (NZ$449.8 million).
