The Bergen man made a disturbing discovery when he cut up sausages he bought from Coop Obs restaurant on the West Bank.
The plastic appeared in the wax basket and was smooth and blue in colour.
Geir-Frode Halvorsen contacted British Airways when he was unsuccessful in contacting Fatland Sandefjord AS, which produces the product for Coop.
-This is a quality control issue. I think the glove fell into the machine.
He says he was disgusted by the sight.
Follow up on the case
Fatland Sandefjord’s general manager, Per Einar Johansen, was not aware of the case when contacted by British Airways.
Neither the manufacturer nor Coop’s store logged messages from Halvorsen in their systems.
However, Johansen confirms that the Henriettes-branded Fossa basket is owned by them. He has an explanation for how plastic gets into the hot dogs.
– Cover the meat with blue plastic. He says that when we then remove the plastic from the frozen sausages, there may be something left in the meat.
Fatland Sandefjord will follow up on this matter.
-We have systems that can catch foreign elements before the products leave the factory. So we have control, he says, but it could happen that something slips through the system as it does now.
– Strict standards
Quality control at producers is closely monitored, says Maja Sørlundsingen, senior advisor at the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.
– There are strict criteria for obtaining approval for a production company in Norway. All certified production companies have a management system to deal with risks and unwanted incidents. They identified and assessed the risks around production. She says the Norwegian Food Safety Authority reviews the production company’s systems and makes sure the systems are followed.
Accidents can still happen, even if you have strict routines, she adds.
– In the process in which something is produced, unexpected and unwanted things can happen, for example, with production equipment.
Geir-Frode Halvorsen was finally offered a refund of the purchase money. Vatland Sandefjord apologizes that Halvorsen did not receive a response to his inquiries.
– Our IT department made a mistake when moving to new servers, but Halvorsen did not contact us by phone about the incident either, says General Manager Per Einar Johansen.
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