The Food Safety News reports that the Food and Drug Administration has received “at least 125 complaints from people who say they developed gastrointestinal problems from September on after eating what they thought were gluten-free Cheerios.” The reports come amid General Mills Inc.’s recall of 1.8 million boxes of purportedly gluten-free cereal that contained wheat.
Jim Murphy, president of the Minneapolis-based company’s cereal division, released a statement Monday noting that he was “embarrassed and truly sorry” about the recall, and he went on to explain what had caused the problem.
“Our Lodi production facility lost rail service for a time and our gluten-free oat flour was being off-loaded from rail cars to trucks for delivery to our facility on the dates in question. In an isolated incident involving purely human error, wheat flour was inadvertently introduced into our gluten-free oat flour system at Lodi. That error resulted in an undeclared allergen – wheat – being present in products labeled as gluten free at levels above the FDA gluten-free standard,” Murphy stated.
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