MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A viral video shows a stream of urine being sprayed all over the cereal assembly line at a Kellogg plant in Memphis.
“I threw out all old my cereal that said Kellogg’s,” Cynthia Bronley said. “I have a 6-year-old granddaughter we take care of. I’m not letting her eat that. How do we know?”
The Food and Drug Administration was tight-lipped on its criminal investigation into the footage the company said was shot in 2014.
“Many dedicated people on our Memphis team spent countless hours examining the video and identified differences between the line in the video and the current line, which enabled us to confirm that the video was actually filmed in 2014,” Paul Norman, the president of Kellogg North America, said in a statement.
“If it happened in 2014 and it’s just now coming to light, why did it take so long? Two years later? I mean come on,” Bronley said.
Customers, like Bronley, were left with a long list of questions concerning their families’ health.
“How do we know he didn’t expose us to even a simple infection?” Bronley asked.
Mid-South doctors said urine can carry diseases and put children in harm’s way.
“The one that you would be concerned with the most is any kind of STD that could be transmitted through bodily fluid like that,” Dr. Mark Castellaw told WREG. “So that would be a concern.”
However, Castellaw with Baptist Medical Group said there is no reason for consumers to panic.
He consulted with other experts who said if the tainted cereal were going to cause illness, we would have heard about it by now.
“Any products that could be potentially impacted would be very limited and past their expiration dates,” a Kellogg spokesperson said in an email.
The statement offered relief to some people but left other customers worried.
The company ships products all over the country from Memphis.
That was the reason some customers wanted to make sure something like this never happens again.
“If we’re going to pay what they’re asking us to pay, keep it safe. Put people in place. Put checks and balances in place so this doesn’t happen again,” Bronley said.
WREG reached out to the FDA for comment on the investigation and what potential charges may be filed, but no one responded Monday evening.
Kellogg has more information about the incident on its website.
