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Tesco own-brand ice creams that were withdrawn from sale after they were found to contain painkiller tablets may have been contaminated deliberately, police have said.
North Yorkshire Police’s major crime unit, which was set up to investigate serious offences, is leading the inquiry into the food scare which resulted in the supermarket issuing a nationwide recall of the product in November following the discovery of pills by two customers.
According to a police spokesperson, malicious spiking was “one of the lines of inquiry” and gut instinct led him to suspect deliberate contamination.
He said, it was a challenging investigation, because what the police needed to try to understand how and where and who was responsible for that contamination, and if it was deliberate contamination.
He added if it was felt to be accidental from the outset, the resources the company had put into it probably would not be to the scale it had done.
R&R one of the top ice-cream manufacturers and distributors in Europe, also produces other leading brands of ice cream including Fab lollies, Rowntree’s Fruit Pastille lollies, Kelly’s of Cornwall ice cream and Skinny Cow.
According to Peter Pickthall, R&R’s human resources director, the tablets could not have been added by someone in the Tesco stores.
It was two separate parts of the country so that had focused the police on the fact that it could be a potentially malicious act, perhaps by someone in the factory, he said.
He added, from the company’s point of view, if there was evidence of anything where there was potential for a consumer to be injured in any it needed to be investigated how it happened.
Canadajournal/Agencies
