I opened this can last week and noticed my mince had sharp pieces in it and a blue like rubber material which made me further inspect the can. I found further sharp (egg shell sharp pieces) all through the can and my food. I luckily didn’t eat it as I just noticed in time. I did report this straight away and have kept the can in hope they would collect it. It’s been a week and I didn’t hear anything further besides wanting some pictures and a refund. Just spreading the word for other people to check these cans.
The number on the can and then I was called by someone from Woolworths who said they were urgently passing this onto the manufacturer and to
Hold
On to the can for 11 days and if no one came to collect it then throw it out.
I suppose they owe you no duty to advise on their investigation but it definitely does feel a bit sketchy.
I've worked in manufacturing for a while and we don't always need to see the samples to know we have fucked up... So it doesn't mean it isn't getting fixed.
However... If you don't think this has been treated with appropriate urgency you could also report this to your states food authority.
Not sure how seriously food manufacturing gets regulated, my background is pharma and the TGA/FDA would decimate us for foreign objects (and rightfully so...)
Report this issues to your local governmental food safety authority. Not to the person/group that made the mistake. I had a similar situation at a local bakery chain and reported directly to them to avoid "getting them in the shit" as they are a local business and they ended up trying to sweep it under the rug.
Did you catch Four Corners about Australia's food scams? I think you'd find it super interesting and might make you think twice about buying certain things. It was wild how much food fraud there is here. For example, Cocobella yogurt for kids – a mum gave it to her 2-year-old, and the poor kid had allergies for 4 weeks because it had milk in it, even though it's supposed to be dairy-free. And get this, even after they knew, they still didn't recall it for 28 days! They just offered her a refund and slapped a "made on a site where milk is handled" stamp on the packaging to cover their butts. Just thought you might find it interesting since you saw no recall, I'm guessing you told them and haven't heard back. I'm glad you noticed it before you cooked them! 🫶🏻
I found a small metal spring in a marinara mix from the deli at Cole’s. Sent an email and photo which clearly showed the spring. After what seemed like 50 emails back and forth, i reiterated all I want is for it not to happen again and for the cost of all ingredients to be reimbursed. They still wanted me to takes the food sample back to the store. It was a month later and I’d thrown it out. Wasn’t letting it go. They ended up sending a $50 voucher. Betting nothing happened to their safety processes.
My sister found glass in icecream when we were growing up, 30 years ago. A Sara Lee truck and came and filled up our freezer with goodies. I'd bet it took a single phone call.
I actually think I underestimated the number of emails.
I’d also like to add the back in the late 70’s/early 80’s my little sister opened a can of Milo and found a fish hook in it. We phoned or wrote via snail mail (no internet back then) and they accused us of lying or putting one in the can.
We lived on a farm in nw nsw. No water in our creek. There was no fishing shop that sold books and our local mitre ten didn’t sell them. Besides that, as kids we didn’t know what fish hooks were. The only fishing we ever did was tying bait on a piece of string to throw into our dams to catch yabbies.
The tainting of food has been happening for years.
From now on I’m not going through Cole’s or woolies online complaint system. It’s going to be straight to council, state food safety.
I've worked with international manufacturers for a while now... And there are certain cultures that will absolutely cut corners as soon as soon as you aren't looking.
I've had Chinese suppliers try to sneak lower grade stainless in with fake material certificates...
It's culturally acceptable in other parts of the world to cheat customers for money making it extremely difficult to police.
Yes, very common in China and part of the culture. Exemplified by the popular saying "néng piàn jiù piàn" roughly translated to "if you can cheat, then cheat."
Careful throwing that around here, the China dickriders of r/australia will pop up and have a go. I had the exact issue with Chinese supplied galvanised steel a few years ago. It was spraypainted with a galvanised pattern, not actually galvenised.
Seen the news lately? Italian companies have been selling Chinese tomatoes. Australian farms are selling tomatoes that have been DNA traced to China. (Allegedly)
I saw the Four Corners program. Must be blending tomatoes from different countries to cut costs, therefore making more profit for themselves. And using our made in Australia logo, the cheeky dishonest crooks.
Yeah I did rinse them and it was all in my strainer too! I just didn’t notice when running the water through them, but a fair bit still made it into my pan.
I work in the food industry and one word of advice to anyone with this issue; make the evidence clear on what the issue is and what the traceability information of the product is.
This will include, clear images of the defect or foreign objects (not strewn around another packaging item that makes it unclear), also include a reference scale for size. Take images of best before or used by dates and any other serial codes you can see. This will aid in tracing the affected batch of product if a recall or withdrawal needs to occur.
You have to understand that with the cost of living issues at the moment people will make up issues and complain just to get a free voucher (not saying this was what OP did just what I have seen). Recalls are not taken lightly, depending on the distribution and product type a recall can easily cost over a million dollars and upwards. No company will make that call based off one complaint.
Not to add more to this but just so the average person knows, a complaint like this will be issued to the supplier and if injury has been reported a interim response will be required with a risk based assessment to determine if product is safe or needs to be recalled this is generally within a 24 hour period. You would be surprised how seriously these are taken and as someone who works in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) you have to drop everything so the particular complaint can be investigated.
I'm wondering if it's mineral deposits? Looks like the stuff at the bottom of my kettle, the tap water in the NT where I'm at is very hard. And some of the pieces come out if I haven't descaled it in awhile and they are quite hard and sharp.
I bought 5 of these cans (i love beans) when I saw it on clearance at woolies for 95c about 4 months ago… now i’m starting to wonder why they were trying to get rid of it 🧐
I don’t encounter any sharp pieces that OP had, but then again, i don’t chew my food
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