C&A shares more details of chrome VI case
25/02/2011
Company spokesperson Julia Ley has told footwearbiz that the bootee-style shoes (only ever called leather baby shoes) were manufactured by a partner in China, using leather tanned in China. C&A’s policy is to put merchandise made in China through a quality audit programme there before shipping the goods to Europe for distribution to its stores.
“C&A had the shoes checked by accredited laboratories before they were shipped,” Ms Ley said. “All tests were negative; they did not show any presence of chromium VI. This substance therefore must have developed at a later stage, either in transit or in storage at the stores.”
She said a German consumer magazine, Oekotest, had included the baby shoes in a series of random tests. When the retailer learned that these tests had shown chromium VI to be present in a sample of the shoes, it immediately commissioned specialist German testing and research organisation TÜV to carry out further analysis.
“When the results were confirmed in our own tests, we immediately removed the shoes from our stores,” Ms Ley continued. “We informed the authorities and decided to take no risk and recall sold products from our customers in all European countries.”
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