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A factory worker has been caught tampering with food products destined for the kitchens of some of the UK's favourite high street restaurants, including Nando's.
Garry Jones, 38, will spend more than three years behind bars after CCTV footage revealed he was deliberately tampering with tubs of hummus and salad dressing while working alone at Harvey & Brockless Fine Food Company in Evesham, Worcestershire, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) heard.
Harvey & Brockless was informed dozens of its products had been contaminated from October 28, 2022, and contained items including rubber gloves, plastic bags and metal ring pulls. Jones was working as a "picker" on the late shift at the factory at the time and was tasked with collecting all the ingredients for the following day of cooking.
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Harvey & Brockless performed an internal investigation following the reports and found other boxes of products had also been tampered with. They determined an employee must have carried out the bizarre campaign and informed police.
Footage later showed Jones mixing an unknown substance into ingredients that were supposed to be prepared in production the next day. He was arrested on November 10, 2022, and admitted to combining fish sauce and soy sauce on one occasion during questioning.
Appearing at Worcester Crown Court, Jones pleaded guilty and also admitted to a separate charge of burglary after he broke into a colleague’s house through a window and stole a hairbrush.
He was jailed for 33 months today (October 3) for contaminating goods and also received a nine month sentence for the burglary charge, to run consecutively.
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Mehree Kamranfar, senior crown prosecutor for the CPS West Midlands, said: "This was an extremely disturbing case that could have had far-reaching implications had the defendant not been caught. Jones knowingly and maliciously contaminated food products that were going to be distributed to some of the most popular high street restaurants across the country.
"When faced with the overwhelming evidence presented by the prosecution team Jones pleaded guilty to both charges. I want to thank West Midlands Police and the prosecution team for building the strongest possible case, which saw him convicted and today sentenced."
Nick Martin, managing director of Harvey & Brockless, said: “This disturbing episode could have had awful consequences if Harvey & Brockless had not had such robust quality assurance and product recall procedures in place.
“While everyone at the company was shocked and appalled at what happened, we were also reassured at how our quick response meant that no contaminated products ever reached any end consumers.
“As soon as we became aware of the contaminations taking place, we recalled the entire batch of products involved and communicated openly with all our customers and with the environmental health officer.
“The vast majority of the products involved never even reached their destination, and any items that that did were quickly returned before reaching the end consumer, which meant everyone was fully protected from any contamination.”
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