Earlier this week several Belton High School students shared a picture of an orange juice carton that many said appeared to be mold or mildew.
On the same day Jamieon Gossett said his children came home showing symptoms of food poisoning.
"When I got home they were all racing to the toilet backwards and forth, like they were playing musical chairs or something. One goes to the bathroom then the other, the next one was throwing up, so I took them to the hospital and found out they had food poisoning." Gossett said.
According to Director of Nutrition Services, Susan D’Amico, the school took immediate and extensive action after a student returned an orange juice complaining about possible mold.
"She took the juice to the cashier at the breakfast line so [the cashier] wrote down the SKU number off the carton, but she did throw it away." D’Amico said.
Once they had the SKU number, the nutrition staff opened every single juice in the unit, and did not find any with a similar problem. Afterwards, D’Amico contacted the Health Department to do a sweep of the cafeteria. According to the inspector's report, the school’s kitchen was up to code.
"We can't find any other problems so our assumption is that it's something that happened with the manufacturer, with the carton itself.” D’Amico said.
The inspector added to the report, the risk of getting sick from the pasteurized and sealed juice was very low. The school said they have reached out to both the manufacturer and the distributor to further discuss the matter.
For Gossett he appreciates the school's efforts in preventing a similar situation.
“As long as they fix it, you don’t send your kids to school to get sick.” Gossett said.
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