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Thursday, February 15, 2007
Local markets pull Peter Pan peanut butter
Stop & Shop and Shaw's, two of New England's largest grocery chains, said today that they responded to reports of a salmonella outbreak by ordering their stores to pull all Peter Pan peanut butter off their shelves.
ConAgra Foods Inc. of Nebraska touched off national concern when it disclosed that certain jars of its Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter had been linked to an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened people in 39 states, the Associated Press reported.
ConAgra indicated that the outbreak was tied to jars whose lids bear a product code beginning with 2111, the AP reported.
Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. said that to its knowledge, no tainted peanut butter had been found in its stores, but as a precaution, company officials today ordered all Peter Pan peanut butter to be removed from store shelves, company spokesman Robert Keane said.
The chain has also programmed its cash registers to issue an alert in the event that a Peter Pan peanut butter jar had somehow eluded the recall and a customer showed up with it at a checkout line, Keane said; if such a jar were to be swiped over the scanner, the store employee at the cash register would be alerted that the product was not for sale.
Stop & Shop does not carry Great Value, another peanut butter brand linked to the salmonella outbreak, Keane said.
Based in Quincy, Stop & Shop operates 385 supermarkets in the Northeast, including about 120 in Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, Shaw's Supermarkets Inc., a New England chain based in West Bridgewater, said its 210 stores were instructed to immediately remove all Peter Pan peanut butter from store shelves, spokeswoman Judy Chong said.
Any customer who has recently purchased Peter Pan butter at a Shaw's can return it for a full refund or exchange it for a comparable product, Chong said.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
Posted by Boston Globe Business Team at 03:36 PM