Taco Bell ending voluntary shelving of shells BY PAUL C. CURTIS TGI Staff Writer Until Friday, you can’t fulfill your craving for a crunchy Taco Bell taco on Kaua’i or anywhere else in Hawai’i. Taco Bell restaurants statewide voluntarily pulled
Taco Bell ending voluntary shelving of shells
BY PAUL C. CURTIS
TGI Staff Writer
Until Friday, you can’t fulfill your
craving for a crunchy Taco Bell taco on Kaua’i or anywhere else in
Hawai’i.
Taco Bell restaurants statewide voluntarily pulled all their corn
taco shells (and tostada shells) off the market until Taco Bell, Kraft Foods
and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration complete tests of the shells.
The
taco outage is to see if the claim is true that some Kraft Taco Bell home
original taco shells sold in certain grocery stores are made from genetically
engineered corn, according to Leah Allen, marketing director of Taco Bell in
Hawai’i.
“Even though our taco shells were not included in the claim, as a
precautionary measure Hawai’i Taco Bell decided to pull all of the product
until the mainland had a chance to fully analyze and test the products and give
the green light,” she said. “It was purely a precautionary measure.”
The
test to determine whether or not the taco shells were indeed made from
genetically altered corn is a complicated one. Allen said she’s unsure how long
it will take to get the results.
For those with taco cravings, however, new
batches of shells are being air-freighted in from the mainland.
They
should arrive in Hawai’i tomorrow and be sent to Taco Bell restaurants across
the state in time for Friday’s lunch rush, Allen said.
Kraft has
voluntarily recalled from store shelves its Kraft Taco Bell line of home
original taco shells, “so all the stores should have pulled it,” she
continued.
A woman answering 1-800-TACO-BELL (822-6235) at the guest
services center said the chain is changing the maker of its hard taco
shells.
Allen was prohibited from disclosing sales figures when asked if
the engineered-corn claim, which surfaced early last week, had hurt sales at
Hawai’i Taco Bell restaurants.
Staff writer Paul C. Curtis can be
reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) and pcurtis@pulitzer.net
