(Ryan)
The woman says the sharp ordeal began after she went to a local Panera to pick up lunch for herself and a co-worker, Local 10 News reports.
Once back to work, the woman began eating her lemon orzo soup, only to find her spoon caught on something.
“I start eating the soup and then I hear this sound and the spoon is not moving, so I happen to look down and I see something shiny,” she said.
That something shiny happened to be a small razor blade, the customer claims.
The woman tells Local 10 News that she was so scared that she may have swallowed another blade, that she went to a doctor where she underwent blood work and received a tetanus shot.
“That could have been someone’s child. That could have been my child,” the woman tells Local 10 News. “That could have been anybody that could have gotten hurt. Thank God I didn’t, because I looked down.”
The woman then took the soup and its extra ingredient back to the Panera restaurant. The company apologized for the situation, issued her a refund and offered to pay her medical bills.
“I don’t want you to throw money at me,” she said. “I mean, thank you for trying to pay my medical bills and giving me a gift card, but I really want to know what you’re doing to make sure (this never happens again).”
In a statement to Local 10 News Panera said it had opened an internal investigation into the incident.
“Earlier this week, a guest in one of our South Florida bakery-cafes reported finding a foreign object in her soup. We immediately responded and began an investigation to determine its source. The investigation is still in progress and we remain in close consultation with the guest and associates at the bakery-cafe. As always, the health and safety of our guests is of utmost importance.
Reports like this are exceedingly rare, and we take them very seriously. Our bakery-cafe associates undergo consistent training to safely and efficiently serve more than 10 million guests per week. Our investigation is still underway. We use several tools with sharp edges for cutting, slicing and opening food in our bakery-cafes. The object in question has not yet been returned to Panera to be accurately inspected and identified.”
Customer finds what appears to be razor blade in soup at Panera Bread [Local 10 News]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist