Soda, Dessert Mixes Taken Off Store Shelves After Poison Threats

Pepsico Inc. stripped the metropolitan New York area of two-liter bottles of Slice soda and General Foods voluntarily pulled all Jell-O dessert mixes from Chicago-area store shelves Friday after separate anonymous phone calls warned of cyanide poisoning.

“We have no evidence of contamination yet,” said Peter Slocum, a spokesman for the New York Health Department.

An anonymous male caller, who made his warning in a call to the 911 police emergency number Thursday night, said he slipped cyanide into Pepsi bottles and gave a lot number for the bottles.

Closest Lot Number

A computer check by Pepsi found the lot number given by the caller did not exist and that the closest number was 6F18B23-82, which was a batch of Slice that applied to two-liter bottles in New York City and suburban Westchester County, a spokesman for Pepsi said.

Charles Thomas, president of Pepsi Bottling Co. of New York in Queens, said he was certain there was no tampering. “This is a crank call that came through to the Police Department, but we’re doing everything we can to take the product off the street,” he said.

Mayor Edward I. Koch, who announced the recall, said there was little defense against such threats. “It’s called the copycat syndrome, but you have no alternative, “ he said.

In Illinois, store workers began removing all Jell-O products from Chicago-area stores Friday after a second threat in two days to the White Plains, N.Y., headquarters of General Foods warned that chocolate pudding was poisoned.

Cites Specific Lots

A call Thursday threatened that specific lots of sugar-free Jell-O gelatin were spiked with cyanide.

General Foods spokeswoman Kathleen McDonough said the company decided to recall all Chicago-area Jell-O pudding after an anonymous caller phoned the company Friday morning.

The caller said he contaminated four boxes of Jell-O chocolate pudding at Chicago-area Dominick’s Food Stores but did not say what the mixes were tainted with, McDonough said.

“As a precaution, General Foods has asked all metropolitan Chicago-area grocers to remove from their shelves all Jell-O brand dry mix packaged desserts,” she said.

Chicago Health Commissioner Lonnie Edwards went one step further, urging everyone to destory all packages of Jell-O brand desserts or return them to the store.