Italy’s health authorities were investigating a deadly gastroenteritis outbreak across four care homes in and around Florence on February 13, 2025, after 114 residents fell ill and three people died in what officials described as a suspected food-borne incident tied to a shared kitchen operation.
The preliminary findings cited by local health officials pointed to a central meal production site in Monsavano, in the municipality of Pelago, as the common link among the affected facilities. The kitchen serves one residential care home there and supplies meals to three other homes run by the same private operator, Sereni Orizzonti, including one in Dicomano and two in Florence. According to the local health authority, the illnesses emerged after dinner service on the evening of February 9 and spread among an elderly population marked by advanced age and high medical fragility.
The scale of the outbreak quickly turned it into a regional emergency. Ambulances transported the most serious patients to hospitals in Florence, while residents who were stable enough to remain in place were treated inside the facilities by available medical staff. Health officials said the symptoms included vomiting and diarrhea, and estimated that 114 of the 173 residents across the four homes were affected. Many were later discharged, but the condition of the most vulnerable patients drove the death toll higher over several days.
Investigators said the inquiry was complicated by the condition of the residents themselves. Because some patients were in intense pain and others were not self-sufficient, authorities could not rely on direct interviews to reconstruct what each person had eaten. Instead, the health service gathered information from care staff and moved to test available food samples. Officials said four items, including vegetable preparations, rabbit with potatoes and pizza, were submitted for microbiological analysis. The inquiry also expanded to documents and materials connected to outside food supplies, including frozen goods and products near expiry.
The local health authority said it had already identified problems serious enough to justify a temporary suspension of meal production at the Pelago center, which was shut down. At the same time, Florence prosecutors opened a criminal file into the deaths of three residents. The prosecutor’s office said the working allegations included negligent food adulteration or commerce and manslaughter, underscoring how the case had moved beyond a public health response into a potential criminal matter.
Sereni Orizzonti said it had appointed a biological expert to assist with checks and maintained that HACCP food-safety procedures had been followed correctly by trained staff. The company also said microbiological tests it had carried out roughly a month earlier at the same kitchen had not identified anomalies. It added that hospitalized residents had returned to its Tuscan facilities and said it was awaiting confirmation of the actual cause of the outbreak.
Those assurances, however, did not alter the central fact confronting investigators on the event date: one shared production center had become the focus of scrutiny after a large cluster of illness struck some of the most medically fragile residents in the Florence area. With laboratory analysis still underway and prosecutors gathering evidence, officials were treating the outbreak as an active and unresolved case rather than a concluded food-safety episode.
