A Customer Allegedly Found Glass In A Trader Joe's Product And Reddit Wants An Explanation

Reddit user u/chikmaglur posted a photo of a Trader Joe's Pesto Rosso jar on a plate, but something was very wrong with the picture. The user reports that they allegedly found a piece of glass embedded in the sauce within the jar. Yikes! That's one of the last things you'd want to find in store-bought sauce you're about to put on your dinner. 

Though some users suggested reporting the incident to the individual location or to Trader Joe's corporate, others said that similar complaints had been made to no avail. On the other hand, a user who is a crew member at Trader Joe's, u/kelsoesmuyalto, said that stores pull items after a complaint is made to do quality checks. Another user who works at a Trader Joe's, u/CallistoChemical, said to not only report it to the store where the product was purchased but also to bring the packaging and the defect, in this case, the glass, to show the store exactly what happened. They said this is important because when individual stores send complaints to corporate, their quality reports will be taken more seriously if they include details such as the lot number and expiration date. 

As the thread went on, more users pointed out the dangers of glass in food. If you ingest glass, u/LadyNimbus pointed out, it's possible that it could cut your throat or your intestines, causing internal bleeding. There are even more dangers associated with swallowing glass, according to Verywell Health: It can cut the thin walls of the esophagus, cause an infection in the cavity between your lungs, or injure your stomach or GI tract. Needless to say, it's a scary situation.

Users like u/ttttori speculated that recent quality control issues at many stores may have to do with understaffed factories due to pandemic disruptions. U.K.-based RQA Group, a consultancy specializing in food safety and product recall, issued a 2021 report that analyzed survey results of 50 food safety managers who discussed the pandemic's impact on food safety. While 25% of participants admitted their companies had experienced a product incident or recall during the pandemic, 49% of participants did not feel the pandemic had impacted food safety. Moreover, 34% canceled food safety training. The report seems to suggest the pandemic certainly may have affected quality control and food safety in the industry.   

If you have the unfortunate experience of finding glass or another foreign object in your food, MetroUK has some suggestions for what to do: Leave the product as intact as possible to preserve the evidence of the incident. Also, take photographs to have as a backup, have the purchase receipt on hand, and contact the store to report the incident. Ideally, this will help protect others from possible contaminants.