Pick ‘n Pay chief executive Sean Summers said on Thursday that the supermarket chain will maintain high security at its stores.
Summers said the chain had had no recent communication with the extortionist who had tampered with several products, some in-house.
”We’ve heard nothing, but we assure you that once we do, you will know about it,” Summers said.
On July 11, Pick ‘n Pay withdrew all Maggi two-minute noodles from its shelves nationwide. The noodles were the fourth product to be withdrawn since the extortionist’s threats became serious at the end of June.
During the last weekend of June the supermarket chain told the public of the extortion attempt.
This was after a woman phoned its call centre saying she had experienced a ”strange taste” when she ate a sardine from a can of No Name Portuguese sardines bought at the Princess Crossing store on the West Rand.
When she looked at the packaging she saw it was clearly marked with a pen as ”poisonous, do not consume, contact Pick ‘n Pay immediately”.
Consumers learnt that the extortionist had made his first contact with Pick ‘n Pay on May 13 when the supermarket group received a parcel by insured post containing one of each of its No Name Brand Sardines 120g, Pick ‘n Pay Choice Garlic Flakes 100ml, Lucky Star Pilchards in Chilli 155g. The items came with a letter informing the company that they had been poisoned and that unless instructions were followed, similar items would be placed in stores.
There was further communication from the extortionist — or extortionists — on June 10 and early in July.
Bloods tests on three consumers who fell ill after eating poisoned products revealed that the products had been contaminated with minute amounts of cyanide.
On Thursday Summers said: ”There have been no further developments. We have heard nothing.”
Summers agreed that the extortionist might have disappeared.
”That seems to be the case in 80% to 90% of these cases. They disappear into obscurity after they have achieved what they want to achieve. I don’t know what that is.”
Probably the most infamous case of tampering with retail goods was the ”Tylenol scare” in 1982.
Seven people in the United States’s Chicago area died after taking Tylenol capsules that had been laced with cyanide.
The poisoned capsules had been placed on shelves in six different stores. The case has never been solved, and the $100 000 reward offered by Johnson & Johnson remains unclaimed, said Wally Kowalski in an article on the subject. The article was referred to on the US Court TV website.
Kowalski said a wave of copycat tamperings occurred afterwards: Lipton Cup-A-Soup in 1986, Exedrin in 1986, Tylenol again in 1986, Sudafed in 1991, and Goody’s Headache Powder in 1992. – Sapa