Jensen Karp — a California-based writer and avid Cinnamon Toast Crunch eater — went to pour himself a second bowl of the sugary squares, when he noticed something fishy. Pun intended.
Ummmm @CTCSquares - why are there shrimp tails in my cereal? (This is not a bit)
It appeared as though there were cinnamon-covered shrimp tails mixed in with the cereal. In response, Cinnamon Toast Crunch (aka CTC) offered Jensen a new box and asked him to DM them with further details.
@JensenKarp We’re sorry to see what you found! We would like to report this to our quality team and replace the box. Can you please send us a DM to collect more details? Thanks!
A couple hours after Jensen DM'd CTC, they replied with a tweet that has now caused a bit of an uproar. The company insisted that Jensen's findings were not shrimp, but "an accumulation of the cinnamon sugar that sometimes can occur when ingredients aren't thoroughly blended."
@JensenKarp After further investigation with our team that closely examined the image, it appears to be an accumulation of the cinnamon sugar that sometimes can occur when ingredients aren't thoroughly blended. We assure you that there's no possibility of cross contamination with shrimp.
Jensen told BuzzFeed he was "really bummed" about CTC's response. "I would've dropped this and it wouldn't have went viral if they just said they were going to open an investigation. Instead, they tried to tell me what I was looking at were not shrimp tails, it was a sugar accumulation...which is insane," he said.
Ok, we’ll after further investigation with my eyes, these are cinnamon coated SHRIMP TAILS, you weirdos. I wasn’t all that mad until you now tried to gaslight me? https://t.co/7DmADmoqUt
As the internet usually does with these sorts of corporate mishaps, it divided into two groups of people: Those who came to his defense...
@CTCSquares @JensenKarp As a Chef, I can identify cooked shrimp. These were baked under dry heat, then coated with cinnamon sugar while still hot causing the sugar to coat it, but not lose the crystaline structure as evidenced in this zoomed in picture. Your team is covering it's collective butts
And those who made mad jokes.
This is problematic https://t.co/MsVsHIO3YG
CTC's denial — coupled with the nagging Twittersphere — drove Jensen to "further investigate" his family-sized cereal box. Unfortunately, the alleged shrimp tails were just the tip of the iceberg. He also found a piece of string, a "weird cinnamon covered pea thing," and mysterious black things cooked into the individual squares.
I was convinced to go back through the bag, since when I first noticed the shrimp tails, I freaked out and closed the box. Here’s all my findings, which also now includes a weird little string?
For real - someone tell me they aren’t like maggots or bugs. Is it shrimp adjacent? (also just found this weird cinnamon covered pea thing?) I wish this was a joke.
But wait — there's more! His wife looked into the other bag, which was weirdly taped up, and had what looked like 🤢 dental floss 🤢 inside of it.
UPDATE: my wife has a stronger stomach than me and checked the OTHER bag in the family pack. This one seems taped up (?) and also appears to include...(I don’t even want to say it)...dental floss.
Meanwhile, CTC put out this statement on the matter.
They reached out again to Jensen, saying they would send a FedEx truck to come by and pick up the items so that they could examine them. But Jensen declined their services and decided to take matters into his own hands.
Some updates: I am now in touch with a testing lab re: the “black things,” which I will not yet be calling by any other name for my own sanity. Also, a research company will be paying to DNA test the shrimp tail! (2021, y’all)
He went on to say that, while there's no confirmation on whether Costco (where he purchased the box) or CTC is to blame for the so-called shrimpcident, CTC's response was unacceptable.
I want to also explain this: I have NO idea how this stuff got in my cereal bags and neither does @CTCSquares. It definitely could’ve been contaminated in the Costco (though that doesn’t explain the squares with black stuff COOKED on it or the sugar coating on the shrimp)
My point is - their initial reaction to shellfish being in the bag was to tell me it was sugar. Not to investigate the issue or look into it. It’s a deadly allergy to many (and non-Kosher) and that didn’t seem to matter beyond offering me a new box.
I originally approached them thinking it would help out! Then, they said I’m mistaking sugar for a crustacean. Anyway, I’m testing the DNA of a shrimp tail now. So, I hope everyone is happy.