THOUSANDS OF Easter eggs and chocolate treats are being recalled by chocolate giant Cadbury because they have no nut allergy warning, potentially putting thousands of people at risk.

Cadbury are in a race against time to retrieve products already distributed across the UK after several Easter products were packaged without the usual warning they may contain traces of nuts.

Newspaper adverts will appear from today alerting customers to return some Easter eggs and Mini Creme Eggs that they may already have bought.

The recall comes eight months after a salmonella scare when a pipe in the company's Marlbrook factory was found to have been dripping contaminated water into their products, infecting 30 people and costing the confectioner £30 million.

A statement issued by Cadbury listing the affected products said that "as a precaution, we advise nut allergy sufferers not to eat any of the above Easter products until they either call the helpline number or log on to the website for further information."

Asked how many products were involved, Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough said: "I could not put a figure on it. A lot of products will be in store already but also, because we are talking about Easter eggs, some won't be out there yet."

He estimated the number of Easter eggs affected in the recall will be in the thousands rather than the millions because the problem had only affected a few specific product lines.

Bilsborough also refused to speculate on how much this latest health scare will cost the company, or if any Easter eggs had been exported outside the UK and Ireland, adding that it will be very difficult to pinpoint where in Britain the affected products might be on sale.

He said: "We are trying to find out and are talking to stores at the moment. Geographically, if they are on sale, they will be on sale right across the country."

EU food labelling rules require prepacked food to clearly show on the label whether it, or one of its ingredients, contains nuts.

Nut allergies are increasingly common among British children, and in extreme cases can cause fatal and near- fatal allergic reactions including anaphylactic shock.

Muriel Simmons of medical charity Allergy UK said the situation is "a nightmare".

"If you have a food allergy, you want to have absolute faith in labelling and I am wondering why food manufacturers are not more careful," she said.

"Nut allergies can cause anaphylaxis and even death, so obviously this is really worrying especially because the products involved are the very ones that children especially would enjoy."

David Reading of the Anaphylaxis Campaign said as soon as he heard Cadbury was involved "alarm bells started ringing".

He added: "While we are glad to see the recall taking place, Cadbury in the past has had problems with quite large pieces of nut appearing in products that carry warnings of nut traces'. I've even found a large piece of nut in a plain Dairy Milk bar. It is potentially very serious."

Fiona Moriarty, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said that it is likely that large stores have already collected any affected products from the shelves.

"Big supermarkets have incredibly sophisticated supply systems to the point that some won't even let a sale go through the till, and they are well practised in recalls. It is more of an issue for smaller stores.

"Because of the time of year as well most stores won't have put out Easter products. If this had happened three or four weeks from now it would be a different story."

Researchers have calculated annual consumption in the UK is the equivalent to 8kg of the famous Cadbury chocolate for each person.