Pizza tampering occurred in mid-August, but no one sounded alarm

Nicholas R. Mitchell (Police mugshot)

SANFORD, Maine - Hannaford employees were aware of food tampering at their Sanford store in August but never reported it to police or food safety officials until Sunday, store officials said on Tuesday.

The earliest reports of metal shards inside pizza dough surfaced in mid-August after a Hannaford customer returned pizza dough they'd bought at the Sanford store.

Hannaford officials said the incident was reported correctly at the store level but never elevated to receive a corporate response.

It was only after an investigation into similar tampering of pizza dough at the Saco Hannaford last week that its Food Safety team learned of the earlier Sanford incident.

Nicholas R. Mitchell, 38, a former employee of It'll Be Pizza where the dough was made, was taken into custody by Dover, N.H., police on Sunday in connection with the probe into reports of razor blades being found inside pizzas made by the Portland Pie Co. and sold at Hannafords all over New England and New York state.

The supermarket on Sunday instituted a full recall of Portland Pie products sold between Aug. 1 and Oct. 11.

"Hannaford Supermarkets has issued a recall for all Portland Pie cheese and Portland Pie fresh dough sold in the deli department," Hannaford said in its recall statement. "After what is believed to be further malicious tampering incidents involving metal objects inserted into Portland Pie products, Hannaford has removed all Portland Pie products from all store shelves and has paused replenishment of the products indefinitely."

Shaw's and Star Market supermarkets also removed the product from their shelves.