Shadle Park milk controversy mostly solved, Darigold says

Darigold announced Friday that it has located most of the milk cartons that somehow contained food-grade sanitizer and water instead of chocolate milk. The problem was discovered Tuesday when a student at Shadle Park High School opened one.

Darigold spokeswoman Sarah Taydas said that the company recovered 87 percent of all the potentially affected cartons, which were half-pint cartons of chocolate milk with a “best by” date of Feb. 6. “While we regret that this happened, it poses no health risk,” Taydas said.

While initial estimates put the affected cartons at up to 16,000, Taydas said as few as 1,000 cartons contained the food-grade sanitizer and water.

“We identified the procedural error that as the root cause and immediately put in place corrective actions across all Darigold plants to prevent this from happening in the future,” she said in a news release.

The company is also working with Washington State Department of Agriculture to investigate how the error occurred. Cartons were pulled Tuesday after one student opened what should have been chocolate milk and find a white-watery substance.

“We are sorry that our procedural error has caused alarm and angst for Shadle Park High School students,” she wrote.