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Tammy-Louise, a 26 years old mom bought a chocolate bunny manufactured by Co-op Foods from a local Co-op store in Arnold Road, Nottingham. She gave the chocolate bunny to her daughter who, after taking a bite, almost swallowed a tablet-sized battery that was found in the bunny, SWNS reports.
Tammy-Louise said, “My daughter unwrapped the rabbit, bit the ears off and shouted ‘what’s this?’ I was only a few feet away and came over and saw she had a button battery in her hand.
“At first I thought, how has she got that? I thought we don’t have any of those batteries. Then she said she’d found it rattling around inside the bunny. I was just like ‘oh my God’. How much damage do these batteries do? I’ve heard kids have died from eating them. They can get stuck in the esophagus or can be corrosive.
“She got some Smarties rabbits before Christmas that have little Smarties inside – she thought the battery was a sweetie. Luckily, she’s quite a clever girl, and I hope that she wouldn’t have actually eaten it, but if I wasn’t there it doesn’t bear thinking about.
This isn’t just a choking hazard, it’s corrosive – she could have lost her life.”
Tammy-Louise was obviously horrified from the incident. Her daughter could’ve swallowed the single-cell battery. These kinds of batteries contain chemicals that can bore a hole through the thin lining of a throat or stomach and has a high risk of killing the swallower.
Co-op Foods had started making recalls of these chocolate bunnies, as well as one of their products that had the same issue, the chocolate Santa figures.
Tammy-Louise said, “I popped into one of the stores a couple of days later and found they were still selling the rabbits. I couldn’t believe it. I went to the manager and they said they’d received a round robin call from Co-op that it was a hoax and no-one had actually found a battery inside.
She continued, “I met the area manager later, and finally they took me seriously and agreed to remove the bunnies.”
Tammy-Louise was aghast to discover that the store where she originally bought the bunny from was still carrying the infected batch of the product. The German-manufactured chocolates was drained from 2,800 Co-op stores that was previously carrying it.
Tammy-Louise, “At first no-one took me seriously. The police refused to investigate and Co-op didn’t pay much attention. I’m glad it’s sorted now, but I can’t believe how much work it took.”
She continued, “This has happened to them before with the Santa toys. It makes me sick to think someone is targeting children. It’s so sad if someone wants to harm children.”
Co-Op Foods released a statement regarding the incident on Facebook: “The health and safety of our customers is uppermost in our minds. We are concerned about one incident of alleged product tampering involving our hollow milk chocolate Easter bunny foil figure, which has been found to contain a small battery inside.”
The statement continued, “This follows an incident at Christmas when two similar products were targeted and contaminated. As a precaution, we have begun a UK-wide product recall and have withdrawn the product from sale.
“Customers with one of these products should not eat it but take the product back to store for a full refund.”
The National Crime Agency and the Foods Standards Agency had started their cooperative investigations.
