A Cambridge girl was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery after eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup containing pieces of metal.
Waterloo Regional Police say the girl got the candy as part of her Halloween trick-or-treating, which included stops on Hamilton, Montrose, King, Duke and Lowther streets in the Preston core.
The girl was first taken to Cambridge Memorial Hospital, and then transferred to Hamilton General Hospital for surgery. An update on her condition was not available as of Thursday afternoon.
It’s not clear how the metal ended up in the candy. A spokesperson for Hershey, which makes Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, says the company has several protocols in place to prevent such contamination, including multiple metal detectors and visual inspections.
“We are confident that our products are safe to consume when they leave our plants,” Jeff Beckman, the company’s director of corporate communications, said in an email.
While this is the first time in several years that Waterloo Regional Police have received a report of tainted Halloween candy, there were a number of similar cases around the province this year.
A child in London received a small chocolate bar containing a needle, while Chatham-Kent police reported a needle being found in a chocolate bar by a mother inspecting her child’s Halloween haul.
With reporting by Natalie van Rooy
