Woolies Has Pulled Sewing Needles from Shelves to Protect the Strawberries

Meanwhile, pollies are aiming to beef up food tampering laws.

The national panic over contaminated strawberries in Australia has reached fever pitch, with one of the nation’s leading supermarket chains taking sewing needles off their shelves.

Woolworths confirmed to Fairfax Media that they’ve temporarily stopped selling sewing needles as a safety precaution, following multiple instances of consumers finding needles inside strawberries.

Coles, however, has said they have no plans to take needles off their shelves.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says there have been more than 100 reports of contaminated fruit in the past few weeks, and nationally, six strawberry brands have been recalled.

It’s believed the first cases of strawberry sabotage were confined to Queensland brands; detectives say copycats have been responsible for the almost two-dozen cases of punctured fruit in NSW.

One of those copycats, a "young boy", has already been arrested and will be dealt with under the "youth cautioning system," according to News Corp. However, police have said his behaviour "could be called a prank".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has proposed tougher penalties for those caught tampering with food, increasing the maximum prison sentence for such a crime from 10 to 15 years. The new laws will be introduced to Parliament this week.

Nonetheless, both major political parties are encouraging punters to keep buying strawberries, provided you cut them before eating.

just another normal day in Canberra pic.twitter.com/lroZ2RY3FJ

— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) September 20, 2018

shorter pm: make a pavlova and put strawberries on it pic.twitter.com/siuV4H434R

— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) September 19, 2018

Interestingly, the Liberals are advocating for putting them on pavlovas, while Labor is adding them to pancakes. We can’t even get bipartisanship on strawberry usage?

Header Images: iStock.com/anilakkus