West Kelowna senior finds weird substance in orange juice

A family claims their 82-year-old mother found a handful of a disturbing material in her orange juice recently purchased at the Real Canadian Superstore in West Kelowna.

Scott Munro says his mother-in-law drank a considerable amount of the No Name brand juice until it seemed to be clogged and the juice wasn't pouring out. When she went to find out why, she pulled out a "bone-like substance."

"I'm worried, because she's going on 82-years-old, and I don't think anybody should be drinking that," Munro said.

To maintain the privacy of his mother-in-law and help her in the situation, Scott immediately contacted the Superstore himself and told them what happened.

They told him to phone the number for President's Choice on the juice container, who provided Munro with a file number and said they would get back to him.

"So far, this will be the second day I guess and they haven't gotten back to us yet," he explained.

Scott describes the object as having a, “human bone-like consistency." Although it does feel like cartilage to the Castanet reporter that examined it, it could also pass for a rotten orange peel.

Castanet emailed Superstore parent company, Loblaw Company Limited, with images of the object and told them the Munro family’s story.

"The safety and quality of our products is something we take very seriously and as such will be conducting a thorough investigation into this matter. We can understand how unsettling this must have been for all involved and sincerely apologize for any stress this may have caused or if the customer has felt like we aren’t reviewing this quickly enough," Loblaw told Castanet.

The company said it has an "entire team dedicated to ensuring the quality of our products," explaining an investigation is launched when a product falls below standards.

Although the object is concerning, there have been many food-related hoaxes over the past few decades of consumers claiming they have found things in their food from big corporations.

That's something Munro shrugged off.

"I really can't see an 82-year-old woman fibbing anything about orange juice that she usually buys from the Superstore."

In Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for safeguarding food.

In an email, the CFIA told Castanet it has not received a complaint regarding this issue. However, if a consumer submits a food safety complaint, the CFIA follows up with the complainant, the retailer, and the manufacturer, to determine if a food safety investigation is required. Anyone with a food safety concern is encouraged to submit it through the agency's website.

"I don't want to see some little kid or some older person get deathly-ill or super sick from this stuff," Munro added.

After Castanet spoke with Loblaw, the grocery giant contacted the Munro Family to apologize and requested a sample of the object for testing. Right now, Scott says his goal is simply to just inform the public.

Scott says he has set up a doctor's appointment for his mother-in-law to ensure she didn’t ingest anything toxic. He will also bring a sample of this object to the doctor to get a second opinion on what it might be.

Castanet News will update this story as soon as more information becomes available.