An Oak Bay man is issuing a warning after his wife received a nasty surprise found in food purchased from a local business.
Josh Stevens said his wife, Kim Stevens, had purchased four items from Red Barn Market on Oak Bay Avenue to make herself a poke bowl: shredded beets, shredded carrots, bean sprouts and Tim’s Nutri-Greens.
After mixing everything together and taking a bite, Kim felt something hard.
“At first I asked her if it was her tooth, but she said no, that it was a sewing needle,” Josh said, noting that she’d called him at work after it happened.
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The sewing needle was not from their home, Josh said, since no one sews and there would be no reason for a needle to be in their kitchen.
“It shouldn’t happen and it’s kind of freaky,” Josh said. “It was just lucky that it wasn’t one of our kids.”
The Stevens reached out to Red Barn and received an apology from the store owners as well as assurance that steps would be taken to try to track down any issues if the needle did in fact come from their store. They have pulled and searched similar products and also offered to replace the produce.
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“It’s one of those pieces of business that’s very unfortunate,” said Red Barn co-owner Russ Benwell. “We can’t confirm that it was from Red Barn or our suppliers, but we’re definitely doing our due diligence and have contacted all of our suppliers to see, if by chance, it came through their stream.”
So far, Benwell said, no information has come forward. Benwell noted that nothing like this has happened at the store before.
“Red Barn has been fine, it’s not about them,” Josh said. “We’re just trying to let people know that this happened and that if they bought those products to check.”
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