A woman claims that she found something that definitely didn’t belong in her jar of salsa. Her experience is inspiring others to warn people to always be vigilant about checking their food.
Michelle (@cmeshelllll) says it happened when she was prepping stuffed bell peppers. Michelle opened a jar of salsa, as per the recipe, and thought she was looking at a piece of green bell pepper.
Then she says she realized it was something else entirely: a very long piece of green plastic.
Michelle posted a TikTok that shows her pulling a long piece of what appears to be green plastic from the jar. The post has 476,000 views as of this writing.
Michelle suggests the experience has put her off Pace products for life. The text overlay on the post reads, “DO NOT EAT PACE PRODUCTS!!!!”
Because the jar is already open, it’s impossible to be completely sure it was in there beforehand.
In an email to the Mary Sue, Pace shared the following statement:
Pace takes food quality and safety extremely seriously. We have been in touch with the consumer who contacted us directly. Based solely on viewing the TikTok video, we believe it is highly unlikely that the object the consumer found came from our facility or manufacturing process. We have not received any other consumer complaints of this nature.
A big whoops from Pace Salsa
Although it is far from ideal, the truth is that manufacturing mistakes happen—including in the food and beverage business.
It’s basically a numbers game. Consider that Pace reportedly sold 270,000 jars of salsa in 2020. With numbers that high, there’s bound to be the occasional error.
Many of the 30 reviews on a platform for irate Pace customers claim they found things that don’t belong in their salsa. Actually, many of the things they claim to have found are probably far more likely to gross you out than a piece of plastic. (Hint: They crawl and sometimes fly.)
These types of mistakes happen to basically every food manufacturer. Some, like the allegedly tongue-eating parasite that was actually a crab, were so horrific that they became the stuff of internet legend.
Check your food, fam
Plastic should definitely not be in a jar of salsa, of course.
Michelle’s tale has people urging others to look before they bite.
“Make sure yall r checking ALL your food,” wrote one. “Foreign objects r becoming more common bc of lack of regulation from the layoffs.”
They seem to be blaming cuts at the Food and Drug Administration for insufficient oversight of food manufacturers. This was a common refrain in the comments.
A man who suggested he had worked in manufacturing facilities wondered why people were so surprised.
“Do people think that this type of stuff is done intentionally? Y’all have clearly never worked in a factory, and it shows,” he said. “None of this process is done by physical labor.”
@cmeshelllll I was opening a jar of pace salsa to meal prep stuffed peppers , I thought this was a piece of a green bell pepper originally but it’s a VERY hard foot long spiral green plastic !!! #pace #salsa #recall ♬ LOOK AT THIS – Astro Boyke
The creator defended herself in a response. “Pace’s response was negligent so I was just hoping to spread awareness while there still could be unsafe batches on the shelve!” she wrote. “This video was posted to simply spread awareness!”
Michelle did not respond to a TikTok comment. Her account does not accept direct messages from people she doesn’t follow.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
