Cadbury Schweppes today apologised after it was fined £1 million for breaching food safety laws in a national salmonella outbreak that infected 42 people.

The drinks and confectionary giant, which pleaded guilty to nine food safety offences in earlier hearings, was also ordered to pay costs of £152,000 by a judge at Birmingham Crown Court this afternoon.

The charges, which included a failure by Cadbury to notify the authorities of positive tests for salmonella, were brought after a total of 42 people fell ill during last year’s outbreak that contaminated its popular Dairy Milk chocolate bars.

The court had the power to levy an unlimited fine.

Recorder James Guthrie, QC, fined Cadbury £500,000 for putting unsafe chocolate on sale and a further £500,000 for various breaches of food safety regulations.

“I regard this as a serious case of negligence,” the judge said. “It therefore needs to be marked as such to emphasise the responsibility and care which the law requires of a company in Cadbury’s position.”

Cadbury, which spent £15 million recalling contaminated chocolate and a further £20 million on safety modifications, apologised offering its “sincere regrets” to those affected.

A spokesman for the confectioner, founded by a Quaker family in 1824, insisted the company had acted in good faith, a point the judge agreed with when he dismissed the prosecution’s suggestions that Cadbury had introduced the procedural changes that led to the outbreak as a cost-cutting measure.

The judge said Cadbury had accepted that a new testing system, described as a “distinct departure from previous practice”, was "badly flawed and wrong”.

Lawyers for Cadbury told the judge that the changes were introduced to improve safety.

Anthony Scrivener, QC, for Cadbury, said: “Negligence we admit, but we certainly do not admit that this was done deliberately to save money and nor is there any evidence to support that conclusion.”

Nick McMahon, a partner at lawyers Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, said: "Despite Cadbury's attempts to play down this significant fine, make no mistake it was intended to hurt and is one of the largest of its kind to date.

"This reflects no doubt the company's high profile and the length of time over which the admitted breach took place, but will also send out a blunt warning to smaller businesses of the government's intentions regarding enforcement of food safety laws."

Paul Burnley, a food safety and product recall lawyer at DLA Piper, said:

"This is an enormous amount of money to be fined. It shows that companies have to move fast when it comes to dealing with product recall issues."

Cadbury said it had "undertaken a full review of our quality procedures to learn lessons and ensure that our consumers can rely on the highest levels of processes and standards."

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