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Target looks into (dead)mouse in (maple)syrup claim - EWWWWWW!
Minneapolis StarTribune (aka The Red Star) ^ | 12/03/10 | Paul Walsh - Staff Reporter

Posted on 12/03/2010 9:50:45 PM PST by MplsSteve

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I saw this story on a local news station last night - right before I ate dinner. Yuck!

As I watched this woman explain what happened, my second thought (after "How freakin' gross is that?!") was "She looks and sounds normal. She doesn't look like the kind of person who'd do this as a stunt". But obviously, I could be wrong.

Comments or opinions - anyone?

1 posted on 12/03/2010 9:50:50 PM PST by MplsSteve
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2 posted on 12/03/2010 9:52:30 PM PST by MplsSteve (Governor-elect Mark Dayton? That's so incredibly alarming, don't you think?)
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To: MplsSteve
If you ever see how food is bottled you would know it is impossible for anything to get in it. Most machines can bottle well over 100 items a minute and before being filled the bottles are tipped upside down.

Go back to the Pepsi syringe fraud cases.

3 posted on 12/03/2010 9:56:26 PM PST by LukeL (Barack Obama: Jimmy Carter 2 Electric Boogaloo)
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To: MplsSteve

I don’t buy the story.

There’s no way that a mouse would have made it into that bottle (in my mind, I’ve not worked a line)without it shutting things down or causing some overflow of sorts.

If the line got screwed up, seems to me someone would have trouble-shot and caught it.

I can’t imagine that the squirter-dealy-mabopper would have been large enough for a mouse to squirt through.


4 posted on 12/03/2010 9:58:28 PM PST by Irenic
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To: LukeL

It is not obvious that a dead mouse in an empty bottle would fall out if the bottle was turned up-side down.

Blood and other body fluids may stick the mouse to the bottle bottom.


5 posted on 12/03/2010 10:00:36 PM PST by CurlyDave
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To: MplsSteve

I imagine that you don’t find the mouse in the syrup until the end of the bottle. Plop!


6 posted on 12/03/2010 10:04:05 PM PST by TigersEye (Who crashed the markets on 9/28/08 and why?)
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To: CurlyDave

I still have my doubts. A mouse just isn’t going to crawl into an empty bottle unless there is food in it.


7 posted on 12/03/2010 10:07:47 PM PST by LukeL (Barack Obama: Jimmy Carter 2 Electric Boogaloo)
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To: MplsSteve

I found a Wild Turkey in a bottle once.....


8 posted on 12/03/2010 10:13:01 PM PST by shibumi (Wily Pablo lives in someone's head - rent free!)
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To: MplsSteve

claim that a dead mouse stuck at the bottom of her store-brand pancake syrup bottle got there during the manufacturing process.
*********************************************

Also, what store brand would use a glass bottle? Packaging on a store brand is notoriously cheap. (that’s part of their cheaper overhead)

I can’t see a mouse squirtin’ through the machines but somehow inside the bottle prior...mebbe.

But if it were a clear bottle, surely it would have been seen at purchase point or before the bottle was emptied.

If not a glass bottle, that varmint would have gnawed his way out of a plastic container.

I suppose a ticked-off employee could have stuffed a dead one inside a plastic/not clear container...that’s the only way I see this possible.

I can’t see it done inside the store, either— as they have a plastic safety seal/wrap around the neck or a foil safety seal under the cap.

She’s fibbin’ or some ticked-off employee stuffed a dead one at the factory— before syrup ever entered that bottle.


9 posted on 12/03/2010 10:21:24 PM PST by Irenic
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To: MplsSteve

Why did you add “maple” in the title? The word ‘maple” is not the title of the original article nor is “maple” in the text of the article. It is called pancake syrup and light syrup in the article but nowhere does it mention “maple”.


10 posted on 12/03/2010 10:21:33 PM PST by this_ol_patriot (I work so those on welfare don't have to.)
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To: MplsSteve
I have been in numerous food plants and I would be extremely surprised if this mouse got into the bottle at the packaging plant.

The plants these days are impeccably clean. They have regular pest control. This does not meen that no mice or rodents can be in the plant ever, it is just not a likely hood.

The fact is that the syrup is a pasteurized product.The syrup is manufactured, Boiled and injected into thousands of bottles a second. Each bottle is made and shipped to the plant by a bottle maker. They have food grade quality specs as well. And prior to the packaging the bottles are sent UPSIDE DOWN through a high pressure steam and water washer. They only are right side up for seconds prior to being filled with a hot syrup at 165 Deg or more. They are them sent through a steam tunnel to put the silver foil cover seal on the bottle.

Not to be too gross, but the mouse in that bottle was in way too good of shape to have been introduced into the package at the factory. It the mouse had fallen into the vat, the filler, or the bottle, it would have been liquefied and unrecognizable.

They are lying, They put the mouse in the bottle themselves. Expect a follow up story within a month, and a possible Fraud charge against the woman and her husband.

11 posted on 12/03/2010 10:23:06 PM PST by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: MplsSteve

I don’t know about a mouse in a syrup bottle, but I got the added bonus of a dead yellowjacket in a can of Coke once. It wasn’t an opened can I’d left sitting around, so it couldn’t have climbed in after I’d opened it, and it was somewhat deteriorated if I remember correctly. Didn’t bother to report it to anyone—just said something like “yuck, look at that” to my wife then dumped the Coke. It was about 25 years ago and I tend to forget about it until one of these stories pop up in the news. Didn’t stop me for drinking Coke over the following decades either. On the other hand, if it had been a mouse...


12 posted on 12/03/2010 10:23:16 PM PST by FreedomForce (A conservative 2012)
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To: this_ol_patriot

The word “maple” isn’t in the title of the original article?! (sarcasm)

No sh*t, Sherlock! That’s why I put it in parentheses.

It also goes without saying that from what I saw on TV that the bottle of syrup looked a lot like it was maple syrup. So, it wasn’t too much of a freakin’ reach to add the word “maple”.

Find someone else to be anal-retentive with.


13 posted on 12/03/2010 10:27:01 PM PST by MplsSteve (Governor-elect Mark Dayton? That's so incredibly alarming, don't you think?)
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To: Irenic
It is virtually impossible for the mouse to be in that bottle prior to purchase. The manufacturer of this product is the same one that owns Post and Ralston. They have probably twenty brands that they package on the same line with little or no difference in the ingredients.

I have been in the second largest bakery in the World and they make 40% of the Oreo cookies, and every Ritz Bits Cracker, and Entenmann's mini muffins that is consumed in this country and they ARE NOT NABISCO. they are a private company that makes a large amount of the food that you have in your home. I have watched them package two different brands simultaneously with products coming off the same line. One was a store brand and one was a name brand.

14 posted on 12/03/2010 10:34:42 PM PST by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: Jim from C-Town

I tend to agree, completely. I can see few possibilities this wouldn’t have been caught at production level.

The only ‘wild card’ for me is the possibility of some ticked-off employee. I seriously doubt that, though.
____________________________________________________________
I have watched them package two different brands simultaneously with products coming off the same line. One was a store brand and one was a name brand.
__________________________________________________________

Still, isn’t the packaging for store brand a cost savings over name brand packaging— no matter the product?

Certainly that little rainbow bar-code-type-thingy-maboper tells one more color was spit out on that package?

I never see those color bars on store brand. prob’ly because store brands *usually lack much color, beyond 2 primary.

BTW, I’m not fighting, I’m trying to learn...pick your brains. :p


15 posted on 12/03/2010 11:09:30 PM PST by Irenic
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To: MplsSteve

She didn’t want a little extra added protein?


16 posted on 12/03/2010 11:34:17 PM PST by Grams A (The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)
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To: FreedomForce
Didn’t bother to report it to anyone—just said something like “yuck, look at that” to my wife then dumped the Coke.

I once bit into a metal screw in a Polish sausage purchased from a street vendor. I took it back and he gave me a different sausage. I considered the matter settled.

In retrospect, I coulda *OWNED* that hotdog cart!

17 posted on 12/03/2010 11:40:10 PM PST by Drew68
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To: MplsSteve

Take off, eh. How did that mouse get from my Elsinore beer bottle to her maple syrup bottle?


18 posted on 12/04/2010 12:39:50 AM PST by TheThinker (Communists: taking over the world one kooky doomsday scenario at a time.)
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To: Jim from C-Town

I’ve told this story once on this forum, and grossed everyone out, but I wanted to put it out there in reference to your manufacturing facility claim (I used to work in manuf., so I know how automated these things are at this point...it hardly seems a mistake could be made).

I purchased a very high-quality bag of dog food. This bag has a three-fold top to close it; there were no holes in the bag of any size, as no dog food was spilling from the bag.

As I am a procrastinator, I purchased the bag the day before I needed it...LOL! Anyway, the next morning, I opened the bag; and you would definitely notice if it wasn’t properly glued shut. Poured some food into the bowl, and went off to work.

The next morning when I opened the bag again, I noticed a kind of “off” smell. It wasn’t particularly hideous, just a little sour. So, I gave the bag a good shake, and dumped some out in the bowl. Well, out plopped a large “clump” of something that was a very-long-dead mouse. It had apparently been liquified at some point because the dog food kibbles were stuck to it in the manner of a salted-nut roll. After which, it became somewhat mummified...a hairy, kibble-coated, glob. Of course, the dog wanted to eat it immediately....BONUS!

After I stopped retching, I called the company who claimed that since there were no holes in the bag, the mouse must have gotten in through the folded top at the (insert major pet store here) distribution center. Once in the bag, they claimed, it would have been unable to get out. They said that there was NO WAY, due to their automated process that it could have happened at the factory.

That bag was not open at the top. I did not believe them then, and I still do not believe them. FWIW, a few months later they recalled most of their product due to salmonella contamination. I’ve since switched brands.

As I said, having been in manufacturing with the miracle of fail-safe automation, it’s not. The lines often stop automatically due to some reason or another, leaving half-finished products sitting for as long as it takes to fix the problem. What should happen is that those products should be removed; but it doesn’t exactly work that way.

I have no idea what really happened in this case, but I will tell you this: many plant managers have bonuses predicated upon the amount of distributable product that leaves the line (AKA productivity). I have witnessed, on MANY occasions, high-level quality control managers’ attempts to pull batches of inferior product (not food in my case), only to have the order overridden by the plant manager. Needless to say, this quickly becomes known by the line employees, who then have no particular interest in maintaining unenforced quality standards.


19 posted on 12/04/2010 12:40:21 AM PST by garandgal
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To: LukeL

Impossible? Maybe nowadays but I worked in a cannery in the late 60s and I SAW the mice and the mold going through the conveyor belt (COULDN’T REACH OUT AND STOP ALL OF IT)and into jam and vegetables and I could barely survive the nausea.

Is it different in 2010? I truly hope so! We all eat this stuff.


20 posted on 12/04/2010 1:08:51 AM PST by tinamina
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