Chocolate lovers, brace yourselves: Barry Callebaut just shut down its chocolate plant in Brussels - billed as the world's largest - after it discovered salmonella in a batch of chocolates on Monday. The suspected contamination was in the lecithin used as an emulsifier. Since lecithin is used in almost every type of chocolate made at the plant, the entire operation was shut down as a precaution.

In a statement, the company said "Barry Callebaut informed the Belgian food authorities (FAVV) about the incident and has taken the precautionary measure to stop all chocolate production lines and to block all products manufactured since the time of testing." It's not clear whether any consumers became ill after eating any contaminated products.

This is the second time this year that a major chocolate manufacturer has had a salmonella outbreak. Three months ago a factory owned by Ferrero that makes Kinder-brand chocolates was shut down over links to several cases of salmonella. Let's hope there aren't any other shutdowns soon, or chocolate lovers like myself might have to break into the emergency rations!

Kidding aside, experts predict that the prevalence of food-borne outbreaks from bacteria like salmonella or E. coli is likely to increase over the next few decades as a result of climate change. Most of the food safety concerns revolve around fresh fruits and vegetables, but with incidents like this happening with seemingly increasing frequency in factories like Callebaut's, it appears that no food product is immune from potential contamination. Let's all be careful out there!