Austrian police have detained a 39-year-old suspect in a case involving rat poison found in HiPP baby food jars sold on supermarket shelves in central Europe, officials said May 3. The Burgenland State Criminal Police Office said the probe began after poison turned up in a jar purchased at a supermarket in Eisenstadt on April 18, before authorities issued a wider warning and HiPP moved to recall affected products.
According to the police office, the suspect was arrested in Salzburg state, to the west, after officers questioned the individual as the investigation developed. The Burgenland public prosecutor’s office said it has opened an inquiry into suspected “intentional endangerment of the public,” describing the matter as a criminal investigation tied to the risk posed by the tampered food.
HiPP said the arrest brought relief. In a statement provided to the Associated Press on May 3, the company said it was “greatly relieved” by the detention and that it would share further updates as verified details emerge.
Authorities previously said they believed the tampering occurred in 190-gram jars of baby food made with carrots and potatoes for 5-month-olds that were sold from SPAR supermarkets in Austria. After the case became public, HiPP recalled the jars it had sold at SPAR supermarkets in Austria, including SPAR, EUROSPAR, INTERSPAR and Maximarkt stores, and vendors in Slovakia and the Czech Republic also removed the product from sale.
Austrian authorities said a customer reported that a jar appeared tampered with at the time the issue was detected, and police said no one had consumed the baby food. They also said five tampered jars were seized before they could be eaten, and that an expert report on the toxicity of the poison was pending as investigators worked to determine its characteristics and the circumstances of the tampering.
In its recall messaging, HiPP said the action was not due to any product or quality defect by the company. The company said jars left its facility in “perfect condition,” and HiPP told police it had received information connected to the case through an alleged extortion message sent to a shared mailbox.
HiPP, based in Pfaffenhofen, Germany, described itself as a “victim of extortion,” according to an AP account of the company’s statement. The company said the “blackmailer” message prompted it to immediately inform police.