White powder in tobacco brings company freeze on product

By NATASHA HARRIS and PATRICK GOWER

The country's largest tobacco firms have issued a freeze on all roll-your-own tobacco after a Tauranga man found white powder in a packet yesterday morning.

A Tauranga supermarket, New World Brookfield, closed for four hours when the man brought back a newly opened 30g of Port Royal tobacco.

British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco issued a statement last night asking customers not to buy packs of tobacco,which includes 13 brands of 30g and 50g packets, or smoke any unopened packets.

Carrick Graham, spokesman for British American Tobacco, said while the company believed the discovery of white powder to be an "isolated incident", they wanted to ensure the safety of consumers until police named the substance.

"A sample run of the batch came back fine so it does tend to indicate that this incident is isolated, but we are very concerned and we're treating this matter very seriously," Mr Graham said.

"Early indications then do show it's not an issue with production ... it could involve the tampering of the product."

The man who found the white powder told police the cellophane covering the pack had not been tampered with before he opened it.

Police expect to know the identity of the powder in two days.

Foodstuffs Auckland managing director Tony Carter praised the supermarket for immediately contacting police about the 30g packet of tobacco. The white powder scare comes two days after the Herald received two cyanide-laced letters, threatening to poison food and drink.

The letters, which came after another cyanide-laced letter was sent to the British High Commission two months ago, have caused some fast-food outlets and cafe chains to increase their security by taking condiments, such as sugar and pepper sachets, off the main counter.

McDonald's got rid of tables holding condiments, sauces and straws on Friday "until further notice".

Patrons must now ask at the counter if they want something extra with their meals.

Company spokesman Liam Jeory said the removal of self-service was "a very wise precaution", coming after police warnings about food and drink since the threats began last month.

McDonald's had self-service tables in "the minority" of its 149 restaurants nationwide.

"The only thing that people are served that they can put in their mouths from McDonald's will come from behind the counter," he said.

"It doesn't stop anyone from having them. They are under our control. We just want to reassure our customers that there is no way anyone can get to our stuff."

Starbucks marketing manager Alistair Kirk said water jugs on their condiment tables were taken away two weeks ago as part of their review of safety procedures.

Starbucks has an extensive self-serve condiment table of milk jugs, sugar and pepper sachets and shakers of chocolate and cinnamon.

"For the last six weeks we have been doing a national review and we removed the water jugs as they posed a potential risk," Mr Kirk said.

"There is a potential risk with our shakers and milk jugs, but we will continue to review our policy."

Burger King area manager for Auckland City and North Shore, Goh Ting, said some of his stores had been reminded in the last few weeks to get wrapped drinking straws.

"We have been implementing this for the past seven months as we didn't want people touching other straws ... this has nothing to do with a potential cyanide attack though."