Archive for the ‘Quality Control’ Category

I hope you haven’t eaten those SpaghettiOs you bought back in late 2008 or 2009.

Campbell Soup Co. is recalling 15 million pounds of SpaghettiOs with meatballs after a cooker malfunctioned at one of the company’s plants in Texas and left the meat undercooked.

The Agriculture Department announced the recall late Thursday. Campbell spokesman Anthony Sanzio said the company is recalling certain lots of the product manufactured since December 2008 “out of an abundance of caution” because officials don’t know exactly when the cooker at the Paris, Texas, plant malfunctioned. Officials believe it happened recently but aren’t sure, he said.

The meatballs that went through the cooker did not get the requisite amount of heat, according to the company.

YUM!

Could this be the start of something big? Like the return of Steve Jobs?

More than three months into a medical leave from Apple Inc, Chief Executive Steve Jobs remains closely involved in key aspects of running the company, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook runs the day-to-day operations, but Jobs has continued to work on the company’s most important strategies and products from home, the newspaper said in a story on its website.

I spent the day monitoring the server. Thanks to the Consumerist, my mother-in-law’s Best Buy incident has picked up a lot of traction.

When my father-in-law stood in the store with the camera in hand, Nathaniel informed him there were no longer any images on the camera. Well, duh, my mother-in-law already told him they had been deleted to make room for my son’s photographic masterpieces. Nathaniel also said that the photos I deleted were only “demo” photos placed on the camera by the nice folks at Casio.

You know it and I know it. Casio does not put demo photos on their cameras. If they did, I doubt they would use photos of a black woman sitting seductively on a bed with the camera box at the corner of the bed. Fuzzy photos of white shutters in the same bedroom won’t exactly sell any cameras either.

Anyway, have you ever heard of “PhotoRescue Expert”? It’s a really nice application that allows you to recover images you may have accidently deleted. Wouldn’t it be awesome if I was able to run that application and scan the camera to see if I could recover any of those “demo” photos?

Oh but wait, I did. Due to the fact we had taken a couple photos before we realized the camera wasn’t working right, the first couple images were not recoverable.

Read the rest at 101 Dead Armadillos.

It’s amazing that they have gone this long with their sodium levels as high as they are. Really. Everyone I know has eaten Campbell’s soups, and I still find myself eating them from time to time.

The Campbell Soup Co.’s kid-oriented soups, which feature characters such as Dora the Explorer and Batman on the cans, are getting their second sodium reduction in three years, the company announced Monday.

This time, the 12 soups designed for children will have 480 milligrams per serving, which means the company can legally label them as healthy foods for the first time.

“Your kids can enjoy Dora the Explorer even more,” said Douglas R. Conant, Campbell’s president and chief executive, said in an interview. “They’ll be down to heart-healthy levels.”

For Camden-based Campbell’s, high sodium levels have been a big health concern for decades, especially in relation to products that are otherwise generally healthy.

I just think it’s funny they are finally doing this. My question is, since they are cutting sodium levels, exactly what are they adding to help keep the soups edible. Maybe it’s scarier than the sodium, who knows.

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I’m sorry, but when I think “coffee”, McDonalds is the last place I think of, unless I am thinking about the lady who spilled a cup on her lap and burnt herself and sued and made millions.

McDonald’s Corp’s (MCD.N) plan to expand the beverage lineup at its U.S. restaurants with cappuccinos, lattes and other drinks is expected to add $1 billion to annual sales, a spokeswoman said on Monday.

The espresso-based drinks, which are currently in 800 of McDonald’s nearly 14,000 U.S. locations, mark the newest effort by the world’s No. 1 restaurant company to upgrade its coffee offerings and take on rival Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O).

McDonald’s has even added a “barista” position in its restaurants and dedicated a section of counter space to the automated espresso machines so customers can see the drinks being made, spokeswoman Danya Proud said. Those details were first reported Monday in the Wall Street Journal.

Ohhh! Wow. We get to watch them make the coffee. Wait. We get to watch the automated machines make the coffee. Wow. It’s shiny I bet.

Do they really think they can compete with Starbucks? Hell, I don’t even think of McDonalds when I want a hamburger, why would I want to go there for coffee?

I can help but remember the ad on their website…

Find out if your investments could be earning more.

Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Friday one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen. A spokeswoman for the Omaha-based company said more sensitive information in the same database, including Social Security numbers and account numbers, does not appear to have been taken.

The company would not share many details of its investigation, including when the hack took place, because it is still looking into the theft and cooperating with investigators from the FBI, Securities and Exchange Commission, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and local authorities.

Yeah, and find out if your investments are now in the hands of the hackers who took all of our customer data.

Ouch.

Even with toys tainted with lead paint and magnets that could literally choke a child internally, our trade deficit with China climbed to the second highest ever recorded.

The U.S. trade deficit declined slightly in July, helped by record exports that offset the biggest foreign oil bill in nearly a year. But even a spate of recalls did not stop the deficit with China from climbing to the second-highest level on record.

The trade deficit edged down 0.3 percent in July to $59.2 billion, compared with $59.4 billion the month before, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It was the lowest monthly imbalance since April.

…

America’s deficit with China jumped 12.5 percent in July to $23.8 billion, the second-highest level on record, surpassed only by a $24.4 billion imbalance in October. So far this year, the deficit with China is running at an annual rate of $242 billion, putting the country on track to surpass last year’s record deficit with China of $233 billion, the highest ever recorded with a single country.

How disgusting.

I applaud Wal-Mart for increasing testing of the products they sell. It sounds odd giving them credit, and I can’t help but wonder what their motive really is. But, that doesn’t change the fact that they still sell a boatload of items from China.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Thursday it was asking suppliers to resubmit testing documentation for the toys it sells after Mattel Inc’s recall this month of millions of Chinese-made toys.

The world’s largest retailer is also taking other measures to reassure consumers about the safety of its toys ahead of the critical holiday shopping season.

In an e-mailed statement, Wal-Mart also said it hired independent laboratories to conduct an average of 200 additional tests each day. It also said it was working to find new toys and manufacturers from all over the world to give parents greater choice.

Does anyone actually believe that Wal-Mart will carry toys from other places that cost more? Ha! Several weeks ago, my kids, yes my kids, decided they were boycotting toys made in China. Since they announced their boycott, they have only found three items at Wal-Mart that would be classified as “kid cool” that were not made in China.

In that regard, things aren’t looking good for Wal-Mart these days.