‘Last Wednesday (July 12, 2006), some builders employed by Korai, a Turkish company, to work at the construction site of IKEA store and MEGA shopping center in Yekaterinburg, went down with food poisoning. Korai is an independent enterprise that is not part or division of IKEA,’ reports the spokesperson for the Swedish company.

‘Korai had arranged the catering with an outsource company and now has to look into the causes of the poisoning. The results of lab tests carried out by the laboratory of municipal clinic № 40 and the epidemiologic services revealed no signs of bacteriological infection in the food. The experts are now examining the conditions in which the food was cooked and transported, and their conclusions will be used as guidelines for doing everything possible to prevent anything like this in future,’ reports IKEA’s spokesperson.

126 patients are still in hospital now, the rest of them have already left.