A 10-year-old boy took a sip of his Capri Sun last week expecting a fruity thirst quencher to come through that yellow straw. Instead, he started choking, and then pulled a worm out of his mouth, his mom Christina Stewart told WSOC-TV.
Horrified, Stewart called Kraft Foods (the parent company of Capri Sun) and was given a relaxed response. "She was like, 'Well, I'll just give you your money back, like it wasn't a big deal," Stewart recounts.
And then Kraft Foods sent this statement to WSOC-TV:
"We're very sorry Ms. Stewart and her little boy had such an unpleasant experience. Of course, without seeing the material, we can only surmise, but we believe what she's identified as a worm may actually be mold. Since our Capri Sun products are made without preservatives -- a fact many moms like -- if there's even a small hole in a pouch and air gets into it, mold similar to common bread mold can form. This is why we advise on the side of the box to discard any leaking pouches.We do know that, among the many, many millions of pouches we sell each year, this has occasionally happened to others, and, when we've been able to examine the material, it has, in fact, turned out to be mold, not worms.
With regard to Ms. Stewart's call to us, before our representative could ask her to send us the pouch in question, Ms. Stewart disconnected the call. However, we will ask one of our executive consumer representatives to call her."
Stewart's doctor also thought the "material" in question was a worm but he has sent it to a lab to confirm.
Babble's Danielle Sullivan dug further (no pun intended) and found several instances of worms found in Capri Sun packs. She even discovered that it's a highly searched term on Google (When Sullivan started to type "capri sun w", the word "worms" auto-filled.) There was a similar report just weeks ago in Philadelphia, and another claim in Texas in May 2011. Sullivan also found several YouTube videos of people finding worms in their pouches that could make your skin crawl. "Each of the people involved say the packages were completely sealed, no leaks were present and the boxes were new, not expired," she wrote.
Despite Capri Sun's argument for why moms like the preservative free juice pouches, there is still the issue of high fructose corn syrup and 16 grams of sugar being in each pack. So, to the little boy who decide to "funnel" the stuff, you might want to think twice before your next binge.