Africa’s leading producer and marketer of packaged wines, Distell, is in the process of a limited trade recall as a result of small glass particles being detected in some of its bottles.

The company’s Uganda distributor, Uganda Duty Free Sales, is recalling products according to local reports. Markets affected include Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and UK.

“We are working with our agents and customers to implement a targeted trade recall of specified batches,” says Distell. To see the product lists and batch numbers affected click here and then click the relevant market to get the lists.

The particles were discovered during quality assurance tests carried out by the company’s agent in Japan but Distell points out that no consumer complaints have been received “and expert medical opinion has confirmed that ingestion would be harmless”.

Investigations have isolated the cause to a small proportion of bottled wines produced on a single bottling line at one of Distell’s wine packaging facilities and has since been rectified.  This production line represents 4% of Distell’s total wine production and the incident rate of these particles was less than 0.01%, says the company.