Food Defense Issue – needle found in strawberries

Food Defense issue/example  in Strawberries (Australia) possibly by a disgruntled ex-employee:

 

https://www.foodsafe...n-strawberries/

 

 

I heard around this time of the year that people giving out candy for trick-or-treating children, people would put needles in the candy or some other kind of physical contaminant. 

I heard around this time of the year that people giving out candy for trick-or-treating children, people would put needles in the candy or some other kind of physical contaminant. 

 

FYI: More of an urban myth in the US. Very rare. More likely to get hit by a car than get poisoned candy.

 

https://www.history....dy-was-poisoned

FYI: More of an urban myth in the US. Very rare. More likely to get hit by a car than get poisoned candy.

 

https://www.history....dy-was-poisoned

I wouldn't be so sure. 

 

https://www.wrn.com/...alloween-candy/

 

It happened in northern Wisconsin. 

I hear on the radio every year without fail of at least 1 occurrence in the area where I live too

 

https://torontosun.c...outhern-ontario

 

https://www.ctvnews....candy-1.2638514

 

https://www.huffingt...ndy_a_23271367/

 

https://www.cp24.com...candy-1.2647613

 

Or this disgruntled employee

https://www.google.c...chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

or this

https://listverse.co...duct-tampering/

 

And we are probably all more likely to get hit by a car than contract listeria, but that doesn't mean we don't share our information to decrease listeria

FYI: More of an urban myth in the US. Very rare. More likely to get hit by a car than get poisoned candy.

 

https://www.history....dy-was-poisoned

 

Several of my former employees had never gone trick-or-treating before because their parents wouldn't let them because of this! I couldn't believe it!! 

the employee must be working after the metal detector...

http://www.foxnews.c...n-continue.html

 

This is wild.  Apparently it is a large case of sabotage.  Apples, bananas, mangos and strawberries now.  Nice to see the government stepping in for support of the farmers though.

Urban myth, nope -- needles in candied apples were given out to kids in New Jersey several years ago.

 

Par for the course with a satanic event such as holloween.

This seems like a good time for us to take a peak at our food defense plans to ensure we dont have any weak areas. I know for a fact that we will be bringing this up in our next meeting. It is always good to have real world scenarios to make the goals a bit more relateable.

Just to open this up for more discussion, if this were happening in your own plant, what steps would you take?? 

I'm very curious how long this will go on and if they'll release any information on the culprit(s). 

Hey Redbudke,

This is a full stop on production in the event that it is found in a plant. Scrap of product on lines unless it can be fully reviewed and inspected, metal detector inspection, video review of the adulteration occurring, finding the root cause with the employee, finding the weakpoint and adding security with cameras or a way to close off access from employees.

In short, this is huge issue that will be expensive to fix. Whats more is that if you dont spend money on it then the loss of consumer confidence could have a greater impact that the loss of initial product.

Yes definitely! I think unfortunately even with lots of money spent fixing it, consumer confidence will still be lost.