France Info reports that a Parisian Pizza Hut, where a consumer had found a dead mouse on his pizza last May, was closed by the Prefecture yesterday due to persistent hygiene problems.
A local union representative said there was an “ongoing problem with mice for several years” in this store on the Ledru-Rollin avenue in 7th district of Paris. Management denies the accusations and claims “an act of malice.”
When her husband dumped out a can of Diet Pepsi that "tasted awful," Amy Denegri saw what looked like pink spaghetti spill out.
"We’re not sure what it is…It’s really sick," Amy said, though she suspects it may be a mouse.
According to WFTV Orlando, lab results from an FDA investigation of the incident will be available in one to two weeks.
When Pepsi learned of the incident, a spokesperson contacted the Denegri’s. The can was traced to an Orlando bottling facility and a review of production logs showed "absolutely no evidence to suggest that any foreign object or substance entered the package at the time of production."
In addition, a statement was sent to WFTV Orlando, which reads in part:
"This is not the first time we have dealt with this type of claim. In every previous incident where lab testing has been conducted, the results have concluded that the specimen did not enter the package during production.
"That said, we treat all consumer claims very seriously and investigate them thoroughly. We have been in touch with the investigating authorities in this case. They are conducting laboratory tests to learn what may have happened here. We’ll assist them however we can."
The Denegri’s aren’t planning a lawsuit. In fact, Amy’s husband, Fred, is still drinking Pepsi. But he pours it into a cup first.
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I’m a self-proclaimed germ-a-phobe not from a previous experience with foodborne illness, but more from reading and writing for Barfblog. Also, Microbiology lab in undergrad taught me that germs are everywhere. It’s enough to make someone like me crazy! I’ve become excessively paranoid about how I prepare my own food at home, and how others prepare food for me.
Last weekend I went with a group of friends to see the new Transformers movie. First thing I did once I got my ticket was check out the concessions. I decided I wasn’t interested in popcorn at the time, but then I saw something that caught my eye. There was a quick flash and a squeak as a mouse scurried from one small hole to another within the baseboards of the concession stand. Then I REALLY didn’t want popcorn.
The sad part was, I had visited the same theater two weekends before to see Angels and Demons. While chatting in the lobby after the movie, my friends and I had seen a small mouse scurry across the floor between the two holes in the base of the concession stand. I considered reporting it to the management, but we had seen a 10pm showing, so the lobby was nearly deserted afterwards, with no management in sight. I brushed it off, but the second time I saw the mouse during my Transformers visit, that was the last straw for me. I reported the mouse to a senior manager, who didn’t seem too concerned, but assured me that he would look into the problem.
I guess all I can do is report the problem, but I can’t help but feel like the staff was already aware of the mouse problem and just chose not to worry about it. Surely one of the concession workers had found some mouse droppings somewhere. Two mouse sightings within two visits to the theatre seem a bit extreme. Yet most of the ratings I found for the facility didn’t voice any complaints about cleanliness of the concessions. The only red flags were that the bathrooms were dirty, but fortunately I didn’t visit the bathrooms there.
If the staff has begun steps to rid the building of mice, I wonder how long it will take. If they haven’t done anything yet, I wonder how long it will be before someone finds mouse droppings in their popcorn.
North Antrim Magistrates Court heard how a man purchased a Hyndman’s malt loaf from a supermarket in the Ballymoney area before Christmas 2007.
When he unwrapped the loaf he discovered the small lifeless mammal embedded in the base of the bread (right, photo from BBC).
The judge fined the company, D Hyndman and Son Ltd, Maghera, £1,000 plus costs for placing unsafe food on the market. …
The defence lawyer said an "onerous inspection" is held at the bakery every six weeks and that two field biologists attend each year. There are 131 bait stations in the premises at present, he said.
According to Metro (UK) Andrea Smith has been put off peppers for life after finding a field mouse while making dinner:
‘My partner poured the peppers into a pan and was startled to find a clump of mouse fur and intestines falling out of the bag,’ said the 37-year-old.
‘After leaving it to defrost you could see the slice marks – it looked as if it had passed through a shredder with the peppers. The sight and thought of it made me feel sick. Mice carry all sorts of germs and there is no telling what my family could have caught.’ 
Miss Smith, a mother of one, bought the bag from her local Morrisons supermarket in Gosport, Hampshire.
A manager was sent round to collect the corpse and carried out an investigation. Tests revealed it was a field mouse.
Bosses described the incident as a one-off and wrote a letter of apology to Miss Smith, in which they offered her a bottle of wine and vouchers to spend in store.
‘I think the memory is going to stay with me for a long time,’ said Miss Smith.
A Morrisons spokesman thanked her for ‘bringing this to our attention’.
‘We take the quality and the safety of all the products that we sell very seriously indeed,’ the spokesman added.
‘We would like to reassure her and our customers that this is an isolated incident.’
A press release from the Food Micro 2008 conference in Aberdeen says that research being presented tomorrow will describe how Salmonella use flagella to attach themselves to produce.
"The new research, led by Professor Gadi Frankel from Imperial College London and carried out with Dr Rob Shaw and colleagues at the University of Birmingham, has uncovered the mechanism used by one particular form of Salmonella called Salmonella enterica serovar Senftenberg, to infect salad leaves, causing a health risk to people who eat them. …
"Professor Frankel and his colleagues at the University of Birmingham found that Salmonella enterica serovar Senftenberg bacteria have a secondary use for their flagella – the long stringy ‘propellers’ they use to move around. The flagella flatten out beneath the bacteria and cling onto salad leaves and vegetables like long thin fingers. To test this observation the scientists genetically engineered salmonella without flagella in the lab and found that they could not attach themselves to the leaves, and the salad remained uncontaminated."
Professor Frankel was further quoted as saying, "In their efforts to eat healthily, people are eating more salad products, choosing to buy organic brands, and preferring the ease of ‘pre-washed’ bagged salads from supermarkets, then ever before. All of these factors, together with the globalisation of the food market, mean that cases of Salmonella and E. coli poisoning caused by salads are likely to rise in the future. This is why it’s important to get a head start with understanding how contamination occurs now.”
Maybe a mouse used its tail to allow its head to get into a bag of greens served in Malta, packed in the Netherlands and imported from Belgium. The supplier was fired.
No worries for Shawn Dell Joyce, a sustainable artist and activist living in a green home in New York’s Mid-Hudson region, who writes that, "when you start asking questions, you begin to see the beauty of eating locally."
Joyce says that local produce is usually grown and harvested within 24 hours of being sold and that local producers tend to be more careful because it is often their own families, friends and neighbors who will eat the produce.
Maybe the Salmonella in that area don’t have flagella.
"Dear Valued Customers,
As you already know, the Health Department closed our store after finding that we did not fully comply with a few concerns they had, including evidence of mice."
The Chicago Tribune reports that a Whole Foods on North Avenue, in one of Chicago’s wealthiest neighborhoods, was found with mouse feces in the back room and a dead mouse in a glue trap.
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Some expressed themselves on the Tribune’s Web site:
•"This is what happens when grocery stores are run by hippies who don’t believe in pesticide."
•"Why can’t mice have an organic experience too? I am shocked that an attorney has not filed a class suit because Whole Foods did not provide adequate bathroom facilities for the mice."
•"Sadly, if Whole Foods packaged [the droppings] nicely as a topping for toast points and charged $10.99 per ounce, the lemming snobs would probably buy it."
The BBC reported last week that Nongshim, a leading Korean snack manufacturer, received information back in mid-February that a spin-off of its famous shrimp chips, Saewookkang, contained what was believed to be a mouse’s head. However, the company allegedly suppressed the matter until it became public.
A consumer in North Chungcheong Province reportedly bought a 400g Noraebang Saewookkang pack on Feb. 18. The buyer found a 16mm-long material with hair inside the pack and reported it to the company.
Nongshim imports the dough from its China factory in Qingdao and manufactures the snack’s final packs in Korea.
Nongshim took action like analyzing the foreign material discovered in the product. But the company hadn’t done much until the Korea Food and Drug Administration publicly reported the issue.
The public is now accusing the company of knowingly selling snacks made from the same contaminated dough for nearly a month and a growing number of consumers are boycotting the company’s products, dubbing Saewookkang not as shrimp chips, but as mouse`s head chips.
The Korea Times subsequently said in an editorial that all this can only happen in a country where businesses put corporate profits and images over consumers’ health and safety — and get away with it.