Lucky Halts Ice Cream Sales After Glass Found in Cartons

All Lady Lee brand ice cream, ice milk and sherbet are being withdrawn from Lucky supermarkets in California, Nevada and Arizona in the wake of growing reports of glass contamination found in some ice cream containers, the grocery chain announced Saturday.

The frozen products all are manufactured by the Lucky Stores plant in Buena Park, and police there said Saturday they are investigating the plant manager’s suspicion that there was deliberate tampering with ice cream cartons.

The FBI has also been asked to investigate for deliberate tampering of food sold in interstate commerce, according to a spokeswoman for Lucky Stores’ corporate offices in Dublin, Calif.

According to the state Department of Health Services in Sacramento, no one finding the glass suffered serious injury. “Our information also is that no one has been seriously injured,” said Judy Decker, Lucky Stores’ communications coordinator.

Store officials decided to remove all Lady Lee frozen products from sale late Saturday after receiving reports of glass fragments in Lady Lee ice cream from consumers in five cities in Arizona and California, Decker said.

Those cities were Oakland, Modesto, Sacramento, Bakersfield and Phoenix.

Decker said consumers who have bought Lady Lee ice cream, ice milk or sherbet should return the packages to Lucky stores for a full refund. Lady Lee ice products also are being withdrawn from Gemco stores, which also sell that brand, Decker said.

There are 330 Lucky stores in California, 13 in Nevada and 34 in Arizona. Some 80 Gemco stores in the three states also sell Lady Lee frozen products, she said.

Buena Park police launched their investigation after receiving a report from Ron Hunt, manager of the Lucky ice cream-manufacturing plant there, police spokesman Lt. Terry Branum confirmed Saturday.

“We’ll have officers going to the plant to check this out,” Branum said. “We have no suspects in the case right now.”

Branum said the police investigation will try to ascertain whether glass “was deliberately put in there.” Branum said Hunt told police that the glass in the ice cream was no accident. “He thinks it was deliberate,” Branum said.

Hunt could not be reached for comment Saturday. Decker, at the Lucky Stores corporate offices, said that the corporation has no proof as yet that the ice cream was deliberately contaminated. “We really don’t know how the glass got there at this point,” she said.

Bill Ihle, chief spokesman for the Department of Health Services in Sacramento, said Saturday that the maximum amount of glass found in any container was about four grams--or slightly less than a spoonful. A state spokesman said the glass fragments apparently were small and Decker said she had been told that the largest piece of glass found in any container was about one-eighth of an inch long.

The glass initially was reported found in only three flavors of Lady Lee ice cream at stores in Sacramento, San Ramon and Fresno. But Decker said late Saturday that the stores actually were in Oakland and Modesto, not San Ramon and Fresno. She said that by early Saturday, reports of glass had also come in from Bakersfield and Phoenix.

Ihle, of the state health agency, said the department made spot checks of Lucky Stores outlets in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas Saturday and found that the ice cream had already been removed from store shelves.

Spreading National Concern

The ice cream tampering allegations came in the wake of a spreading national concern about sabotage of commercial products. Earlier this year, Tylenol capsules were removed from stores throughout the nation after the death of a New York woman who consumed capsules that had been poisoned.

On Friday, the federal Food and Drug Administration said that rat poison had been found in some Contac cold capsules, Teldrin allergy medicine and Dietac appetite suppressant capsules sold in Texas and Florida. The manufacturers have withdrawn those products from sale.

A furor also was raised earlier this year because of allegations that bits of glass were found in some containers of commercial baby food.