On March 23rd, comedy writer Jensen Karp decided to have a bowl of General Mills’ Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Jensen tells us he found a couple of shrimp tails in the box, and even posted a picture of them on Twitter. Now, if finding shrimp tails in a box of breakfast cereal isn’t weird enough, Jensen tells us he went back to the box and also found some string, more shrimp body parts and what he thinks is baked rat poop. Jensen’s cereal box contained everything but the Rosetta Stone and a partridge in a pear tree. Despite all this, Jensen says he loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch and that it’s the only cereal he eats. Confirming fealty to his favorite food, he proclaims, “I own the Kyrie Irving Cinnamon Toast Crunch Nikes” ($800). Clearly, the breakfast food Gods had stricken one of their own. But the Gods weren’t done yet.
As Jensen’s investigative journalism surpassed 154,000 “likes” on his Twitter account, Shrimpgate came to the attention of General Mills, who responded that they wanted the crustaceous caudae shipped to them for testing. Jensen declined and General Mills then proclaimed that Jensen’s shrimp tails photo actually showed sugar and cinnamon congealed into the shape of shrimp tails. Now, I’m wondering who’s telling tales about tails. Could sugar and cinnamon melt into the shape of a shrimp tail? Maybe once – – but twice? And both of them in the same box? Naah.
Labeling the shrimp tails “melted sugar and cinnamon” repulsed Jensen, and he called General Mills a bunch of “weirdos.” Clearly, you can’t challenge a man’s shrimp parts and expect to get away with it.
General Mills replied that if Jensen wouldn’t send them the shrimp tails, he should take them to “a police station.” Brilliant. I can see it now: Jensen walks into the Sherriff’s Station in Topanga, where he lives, and says: “I have a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch here. When I opened it, there were shrimp tails inside. I want you to take custody of all of it.” Once the sheriffs stop laughing, the only thing that might go into custody is Jensen. Bad idea, General Mills.
By now, CNN, NBC and the other usual suspects had picked up the story and the whole thing went viral. Jensen related his plight on TMZ Live. General Mills promised to “get to the bottom of it,” and their CEO Tweeted he took this all “very seriously.” Jensen pledged himself to “ultimate transparency” and posted, “I am happy to report: a Carcinologist (crustacean researcher) that works at Natural History Museum of Los Angeles is going to morphologically identify the shrimp using microscopy and he will work with a team of researchers to use DNA to try and identify the putative shrimp down to species. THIS IS HAPPENING.”
Something bothers me here: Let’s assume that these shrimp tails got into the product at General Mills’ plant. This means the tails are swirling around in the tons of grain that gets ground and stirred and blended with cinnamon and sugar and then put into boxes. And out of all that volume, both shrimp tails get into the same 29-ounce box. And no one else in the world reports shrimp parts or anything of the sort. What are the odds of that? Did Jensen put them in the box? Just sayin’.
The Food Lawyers® take
In 30+ years of advising the food industry, I’ve often encountered he-said she-said situations where the truth is unclear. And in those situations, Occam’s razor – – choosing the simplest explanation – – guides the way. The odds are microscopic that two shrimp tails could fall into the same 29-ounce box when nothing in the food plant is connected to seafood and there are no other complaints in the world. There’s no evidence that the inner liner of the box was tampered with before it reached Jensen. What explanation does that leave? The simplest: The shrimp tails came from Jensen. Why? Only he knows, and he’s not talking.
The next time you eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or any other breakfast cereal, don’t expect to find anything in the box but what you paid for. And don’t pay any attention to guys on Twitter with stories that don’t make a whole lot of sense. They’re just tall tails.