The producer of 'MasterChef' apologizes for the massive poisoning of 44 people in a recording

The culinary reality show

He has apologized for the massive poisoning after one of the tests that was organized at the Oceanogràfic in Valencia.

A diner who worked at the aquarium, Irene, published Monday morning on social networks that "more than 70 people ended up intoxicated", a figure that sources from the Ministry of Health consulted by EL PAÍS put at 44. The health authorities received the notification and, after carrying out the contact study, they delimited the number of those affected among the more than 100 invited diners.

Shine Iberia, the producer of the program, issued a statement on Monday night in which it acknowledged what had happened, but pointed out the unusual nature of the accident in 11 years of the program:

"From MasterChef we are very sorry for the indisposition expressed by some of the diners who attended the recording of our exterior in Valencia [...].

This is an absolutely exceptional case in these 11 years of MasterChef in Spain, a program where it is an absolute priority to guarantee the food care of the people involved ”.

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The investigations could not be carried out further because there was no fixed facility and the notification came hours after the dishes had been cooked, Valencian health sources say.

The case will be referred to the Madrid Ministry of Health, where the production company is based.

The test in question was broadcast on Sunday —after the cancellation last Tuesday of the broadcast for the Copa del Rey—, in the fourth program of

and consisted of preparing different dishes for 120 Oceanogràfic workers to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the aquarium largest in Europe, located within the City of Arts and Sciences complex.

The menu, by chef Rakel Cernicharo (one Repsol sun), paid tribute to the marine world.

Two teams cooked it: in the program these tests are frequent in which the contestants are divided into two groups, blue and red, to cook three dishes, and there is always a lot of tension to complete them on time.

The menu consisted mainly of seafood and fused Indian and Mediterranean food: it was called Viaje a La India con clóchina valenciana (the clóchina is a kind of smaller mussel).

The first course was a Valencian molluscada (composed of oysters, clams and algae-based pesto), the second a Thai sea bass suquet and dessert a Japanese cheesecake with algae.

Tweets from the diner who reported the poisoning.

Cernicharo warned several times that the dishes had many manufacturing errors, but no one suspected that any of the ingredients could be in poor condition.

In fact, the producer assured in the statement that "the food was analyzed at source with positive results and its traceability was guaranteed throughout the process, as reported and documented to the competent health authorities."

However, the diner denounced that her company "informed MasterChef of what happened", but "things came to nothing".

On Monday, the complainant restricted her Twitter account to her followers.

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