Hipp baby food jars stand on a table. Photo: Tobias Steinmaurer/APA/dpa
Keystone
According to Austrian authorities, unknown persons want to blackmail the manufacturer Hipp with the threat of rat poison in baby food. A supermarket in the Austrian province of Burgenland was affected, reported the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (Ages) on Saturday evening.
The police there are investigating at full speed. A Hipp spokesperson had previously spoken of an “external criminal intervention”. “The consumption of such a jar can be life-threatening”, the company warned.
The company had already recalled its entire product range from Spar supermarkets in Austria on Friday evening. The supermarket chain took all the jars off the shelves overnight. As Ages has now announced, a Spar store in Eisenstadt was affected by the threat “according to current knowledge”. The product in question was “Carrot with potato 190 grams”. The tampered jars are said to have been labeled with a white sticker and a red circle.
No tampered jar found
According to the police, no tampered product was found among the jars removed from the shelves in Austria. However, it is possible that tampered jars were purchased before the evacuation, said a police spokesman. Parents are therefore called upon to return unused jars to the supermarket and to contact the police if they notice anything suspicious. This is also necessary in order to have evidence if necessary.
According to Ages, active ingredients in rat poisons can lead to reduced blood clotting. Possible consequences are bleeding gums, nosebleeds, bruises or blood in the stool. If parents notice such symptoms in their children who have eaten Hipp food, they should definitely consult a doctor.
The origins of the family business, which was founded in Pfaffenhofen in Bavaria, go back more than 120 years. Hipp Holding AG is based in Sachseln in the Swiss canton of Obwalden.