• Sweden edition

Mystery glass in chicken not sabotage

Published: 18 Apr 09 11:22 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/18942/20090418/

Investigators at the National Investigation Department (Rikskriminalen) have ruled out sabotage in several cases where bits of glass were discovered in frozen poultry, as well as in other food products.

The discoveries were either false alarms or isolated incidents, not a coordinated attack, said the police who received the reports of glass, needles and bits of plastic over the last several months.

Rikskriminalen has therefore referred the cases back to local police authorities, according to Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

On April 1, the National Police Commissioner was given the task of coordinating several ongoing investigations across the country. A slew of incidents were reported and and police referred the cases onto the National Laboratory of Forensic Science.

There were approximately 80 reports, of which 30 involved chicken and the rest preprepared foods, sausage, bread and fruit.

Anders Wretling, head of the national laboratory's investigation unit, concluded that there had not been “any coordinated attack against the food supply.” These are isolated incidents, he told DN.

Sabotage was first suspected when several people found glass bits in frozen products from Kronfågel, a chicken factory in eastern Sweden, which led a grocer to remove the company's products from his freezers.

Kronfågel recalled its products, and stepped up its security checks during the production process through measures such as the introduction of x-ray machines.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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12:39 April 18, 2009 by dtes
the best solution to this problem and a huge array of others such as global warming and the food crisis down south, peak oil, obesity, cancer, other health problems and more, is for us over-fed westerners (and easterners alike) to give up our fetish with chewing on dead things and go veg! with relatively few brain cells and a little creativity the average person can grow a huge amount of food themselves, imagine that, less time at work more out in the sun getting healthy!
16:51 April 18, 2009 by rong
For the record, X-ray machines can't reveal glass..

..stepped up its security checks during the production process through measures such as the introduction of x-ray machines.
23:52 April 18, 2009 by N18h7m4r3
As a matter of fact X-ray can detect glass. Its not necessary to be a metal to be detected by X-rays. Thats how it works at the airport security scans.

Its not that the X-rays detect metal. Its just that X-rays produce different image for different materials.
10:39 April 19, 2009 by Plowbridge H. Broad
How contemptuous can the police, forensics science board and poultry packers be towards the public. It is an absolute disgrace. How can 80 reports be put down to "isolated incidents"?

If glass were found in packaging in the UK then the source would be found through batch assessments at the packaging plants or eventually by the police if through criminal activity. Here it appears that Kronfågel takes no responsibility (standard Swedish attitude) for its products in case it gets it's ar*e sued. The Police couldn't as we know catch a tortoise and the forensic science lot probably just about worked out what glass is (Ten years of studying to learn 6 months worth of knowledge= norm).

What a whitewash. Sometimes I wonder if I have been transported to 1960's communist Bulgaria instead of a country that thinks it is cutting edge with education and knowledge.
16:12 April 19, 2009 by Bender B Rodriquez
I know that this may be hard for idiots to grasp, but if there is no other common denominator other than glass it is most likely isolated incidents, i.e. a result of copycats and people who want their 15 minutes of fame...
19:16 April 19, 2009 by Plowbridge H. Broad
Of course it would take a moron to assume that 80 instances of contaminated chicken by the same alien property i.e glass would be the result of many isolated coincidences in such a short period of time. The public will swallow that one.
19:47 April 19, 2009 by Bender B Rodriquez
Well, the "morons" at SKL, who unlike you have the expertise and experience in forensic analysis, found that the glass, needles and other substances was of completely different origins. The 80 cases do not solely refer to glass.
20:27 April 19, 2009 by Plowbridge H. Broad
I stated in a previous thread my thoughts on the matter. That was that I would put money on there being no subversive groups being part of the incidents but instead many originating from the source at the Kronfågel factory and the rest being copycat strikes.

The report from NID only rules out sabotage and the forensic lot helped provide material for that conclusion. Any alleged criminal neglect by Kronfågel has not been ruled out and that will be the job of the Police who unlike scientists and the narrow-minded have the responsibility to deal with those matters. The conclusion is awaited.

Of course it is good to see any business that is not responsible for any alleged incidents go to the extreme measures of putting in costly security precautions such as x-ray machines just to placate the public. I wouldn't usually expect that unless the decision of a third world mentality.
22:17 April 19, 2009 by Bender B Rodriquez
Yes, and if the source is not a subversive group spread over Sweden, but instead originates at Kronfågel, then there is no reason that this should be a case for Rikskrim, but instead a case for Länspolisen, as it now has become. The reason to call in Rikskrim in the first place was to coordinate the different invesigations and see if there was a link.
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