Andrew Shearman says he bought the two-litre tub of Much Moore French Vanilla ice cream from the Masterton Pak’nSave on May 11 as a treat for his wife and two kids.
After dishing up four bowls of the ice cream, Shearman took a bite of his and began to choke.
"My wife was looking at me like a madman when I started choking because the ice cream is meant to be smooth," he said.
Shearman was shocked when felt something sharp and proceeded to spit out a 40mm-long sewing needle.
"The first thing that came to my mind was there’s no way in hell that it got in there from our house. We don’t own any kind of sewing needles," he said.
The family immediately took photos of the needle before driving back to the Masterton Pak’nSave to return the tub.
Foodstuffs spokesperson Emma Wooster confirmed that Shearman brought the needle and opened tub to the Masterton store, explaining a needle had been found while eating the ice cream.
"As is the usual process in these kinds of situations, the store started an immediate investigation, which included informing both the manufacturer of the ice cream and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).
"On initial examination of the returned tub at the store, no holes were visible and the customer advised the store team the tub of ice cream was correctly sealed on the first opening at home, which does seem to point towards the needle not finding its way into the ice-cream at the store," Wooster said.
"I had to go to the doctor to get my throat checked and have blood tests, not to mention the mass anxiety which is still screwing with me," he said.
Just 18 months earlier, Shearman’s 8-year-old daughter choked while eating an apple, which the family "are still battling with", and the new incident brought back bad memories for them.
"If it was one of my kids that had bitten into this needle then things could’ve been so much worse," he said.
A spokesperson from Much Moore Ice Cream said all customer feedback was taken seriously and the company was always extremely concerned about matters of product safety and quality.
"In respect to this matter, we have completed an extremely thorough investigation. It is physically not possible for an object of this size to contaminate our ice cream-making process.
"We operate a strict critical hygiene area, and a Ministry of Primary Industries approved risk management programme as part of our quality systems.
"We do not have any object remotely resembling a sewing needle inside our manufacturing facility. We are extremely confident the object did not originate from our process," they said.
Shearman says what frustrates him most about the situation is that it seems the needle has appeared from nowhere.
"I’ve worked in food processing and that doesn’t belong in an ice cream factory," he said.
New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle says investigations into this matter are ongoing.
"We take each food safety complaint seriously and where there is any evidence of wider risk to the public we take action. There is no evidence of such a risk in this case," Arbuckle said.
Shearman says he can’t leave the issue unresolved and doesn’t know what to do next if NZSF’s investigation leads to a dead end.
"When considering these types of complaints, we look at all parts of the food chain including ingredients used by the manufacturer, the manufacturer, the distribution steps, the retailer, and all the way through to the consumer.
"I don’t expect anything free, I don’t expect to get famous, I don’t expect to get any money, I just want the word to be out there for people.
"It’s not the first time that a needle has been found in food recently and unfortunately it’s probably not the last time it will happen," he said.
In November last year, a Wellington father found a sewing needle in a loaf of Ploughmans Harvest Rye sliced bread.
Dwight, who asked to keep his surname private, told the Herald he found the needle while buttering bread from the loaf and said the find was "super unnerving".
"Thank Christ I didn’t bite it," Dwight told the Herald. "I shudder to think. My second thought was if one of my kids had picked up that sandwich and taken a big bite out of it, what are the odds they would have got that needle through the tongue, through the lip ... it’s horrendous".
By Benjamin Plummer
