Bottles of water from the “Fiée des Lois” and “Premier prix” brands have been withdrawn from sale in Intermarché stores following contamination by pesticides.
While product recalls take place every day in supermarkets, this Wednesday, February 14, the Les Mousquetaires group, owner of the Intermarché chain, withdrew one of its flagship products from sale for “regulatory non-compliance”. According to The New Republic, These are water bottles from the “Fiée des Lois” and “Premier prix” brands which are no longer in stores.
Marketing was interrupted following the discovery of pesticides in the groundwater where the water was drawn before being used in the Prahecq factory, in Deux-Sèvres. The Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Health Agency “detected the presence of the metabolite R471811 of Chlorothalonil exceeding the threshold of vigilance and quality”. This molecule comes from a fungide, a product intended to eliminate parasitic fungi on plants but whose use has been prohibited since 2020. It is now automatically searched for during health checks.
A withdrawal as a precaution
In a press release sent to AFP, the Les Mousquetaires group wanted to reassure its customers: “after various analyzes carried out in the Deux-Sèvres department and on the Fiée des Lois site, it was revealed that there was no regulatory compliance without risk to the health of consumers on the water manufactured by the site”. The bottles would thus have been withdrawn from sale “as a precautionary principle and out of responsibility”. Information confirmed by the Regional Health Agency: the water remains “drinkable” and there are “no health problems”.
The Prahecq factory is nevertheless renowned: it bottles 100 million liters of water per year. It specializes in bottling wine but it also packages around 45 million bottles of water from the Fiée des Lois brand, according to The world. It is in the top 5 “bottlers in France”. As all bottling has been stopped, we do not know when production will be able to resume.