Eek! Family finds dead mouse in cheese

Last Updated: Thursday, October 30, 2008 | 7:34 AM AT Comments90Recommend124

CBC News

Finding a mouse in your cheese has a very high 'ick' factor, CFIA acknowledged. (submitted by Atkinson family)

While slicing some cheese for his children, a father in western P.E.I. recently uncovered a dead mouse in the middle of the block.

"This would have been the very last thing I would have expected to find in a block of cheese, which I buy every time I do groceries," Deborah Atkinson of Miscouche, just west of Summerside, said of her husband's discovery.

Atkinson said her family loved Maple Dale's Caribbean brand cheese from Ontario, which has hot peppers and sun-dried tomatoes in it. A couple of weeks ago, while her husband was cutting slices from the last block he bought in Summerside, he gave his four-year-old daughter a couple of pieces to munch on.

He made the unpleasant discovery a few cuts later.

"Obviously he cuts it in little squares because our children are three and four," said Atkinson.

"He kind of got to just about the middle and as he cut, he noticed what looked like fur."

He immediately took the cheese, a few pieces already gone, from the children. They hadn't eaten any of the cheese from near the mouse, and they didn't get sick.

Health problems unlikely

The Atkinsons gave the cheese to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

'We do live in a real world and it happened.' Keith Henry, Maple Dale Cheese

The CFIA immediately recalled about 300 blocks of the cheese from stores in eastern Canada. It did not issue a public recall, because it did not believe there was a health risk to the general public.

The agency believes the mouse did not originate inside the cheese factory, but rather was brought in with some of the added ingredients, perhaps the jalapeno peppers.

Maple Dale Cheese owner Keith Henry told CBC News on Wednesday that employees are now triple-checking all ingredients coming into the plant.

"Thank heavens it is a rarity, but we do live in a real world and it happened, and it is extremely unfortunate that it has happened," said Henry, from the company's office in Plainfield, in eastern Ontario.

CFIA officials acknowledged finding a mouse in cheese has a very high "ick" factor, but said it is not likely to cause any health problems.