Copycat Fears as Strawberry Sabotage Spreads

Needles or pins have been found by consumers in these six states and territories of Australia: NSW, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, prompting a national food safety watchdog assessment.
It’s feared copycats may be behind the latest discovery of needles and pins inside the supermarket strawberries, with consumers warned to continue to cut up any fruit not on the recall list before eating it.
A customer made the discovery of a needle on Saturday, while eating fruit from a punnet of Mal’s Black Label strawberries, South Australia Police said.
A New Zealand supermarket chain has stopped selling Australian strawberries as the strawberry needle scare widens.
Another punnet was bought from Klose’s Foodland Supermarket in Littlehampton prompting the independent grocery retailer to pull the strawberries from all its shelves.
Investigators remain stumped by a spate of strawberry sabotage that has spread to six brands across five states, prompting a national food safety watchdog assessment.
The health minister, Greg Hunt, has ordered the national food safety watchdog to assess the handling of strawberry contamination.
Queensland Police are leading an investigation into the source of the needles, and the state government has stumped up a reward of $100,000 for anyone with information that leads to the capture of the culprits.
>Juthy Saha