More than 50 middle school students in Oregon were fed pretzels that were seasoned with crushed oven cleaner last fall, according to a newly filed lawsuit.
About 37 pretzels coated with Alto-Cham concentrated oven cleaner — an industrial-strength caustic chemical made with sodium hydroxide — were served during sixth-grade lunch at Fowler Middle School in Tigard, a suburb of Portland, on October 20, 2025, according to a nearly $1 million lawsuit filed last month.
More than 50 students ate all or part of the impacted pretzels, according to Tigard-Tualatin School District records obtained by Fox 12.
The school wouldn’t want me on that jury:
According to the lawsuit, poison control was not contacted until nearly half an hour after staff realized what had happened — and families were not notified until nearly two hours later.
The lawsuit claims that L.L. was kept in a room for about an hour, where he was examined and monitored without his parents being told. He was later sent back to class after staff said he was asymptomatic, even though he came home with a sore throat and stomach pain.
According to the lawsuit, a substitute kitchen worker, Chloe Larson, first noticed the chemical was being used as seasoning and had to push the lead kitchen worker to investigate. The lawsuit alleges that Larson was only interviewed after she contacted police about her concerns.
The article didn’t seem to say if it was put on before or after baking, but it seems that they probably had the crushed stuff in a plastic bag that looked like salt next to the oven for the pretzels, which would normally come frozen with a little bag of coarse salt. So I wouldn’t really blame the sub worker here, the problem was having the unlabeled cleaner sitting out.
So I wouldn’t really blame the sub worker here, the problem was having the unlabeled cleaner sitting out.
I wouldn’t blame her either, since she wasn’t the one who did it.
The lawsuit names the school district, the lead kitchen worker who made the error and Fowler Middle School Principal Cindy Pellicci, according to the report.
More specifically stated in this other article as:
The complaint, filed Sept. 9 in Washington County Circuit Court, names the district, the lead kitchen worker who put the oven cleaner on the pretzels and Principal Cindy Pellicci. It seeks up to $950,220.85 and lays out seven claims, including strict liability, negligence, unlawful confinement and violations of civil rights. No court has ruled on the allegations.
What on earth was the lye stored in that it could possibly be mistaken for salt in a kitchen? Why was it not kept in a location with hazard labels like other industrial cleaners?
Not in the US but I’ve seen this done in many quasi-industrial environments (incl schools).
Material is bought bulk, because it’s cheaper to buy cleaning solution or raw materials 5-10kg a time than buying 100x 50-100g small containers, then it’s used to fill up existing containers - many which often lack any kind of labeling, at most, a Sharpie scribble on it.
Then someone simply leaves the container in the kitchen by accident. Another person finds it and puts it somewhere. A third one comes in, thinks it’s something else (because why would someone leave industrial cleaner on the spice rack?) and uses it accordingly.
In my high school, a single tired front office worker (security guard, attendant, etc.) nearly killed half the teachers because he prepared the coffee from a container of rat poison (I think it was rat poison?), because a cleaner dropped off a container of it right next to the sugar container (because of course an unlabelled plastic bottle of white crystals needs to go right next to the sugar and creamer???), because the exterminator who came over the weekend, left said container right next to a radiator… and the exterminator used the same kind of plastic bottle “salt shaker” the kitchen used for salt, sugar, etc.).
Sodium hydroxide is the main component in lye, which is used to make pretzels.
It is also the main incredient in oven cleaner.
To not know the difference between sodium chloride and sodium hydroxide is wild. Those poor kiddos.
That and I believe the lye used in pretzels and other foods like lutefisk has to be food grade. I make soap so I use lye quite regularly, but to mistake it for salt when it looks NOTHING LIKE IT is a very special kind of incompetent. My god if I were one of the parents I would be inconsolably angry, that’s so fucking dangerous!
The sodium hydroxide used to clean ovens can be food grade as well. The storing it not in extremely obvious labeled containers is what likely got an understaffed(having subs) kitchen in trouble here.
Kids these days are so spoiled with their designer sodium compounds. In my day we seasoned our food with elemental sodium and we were grateful (for a very short period).
The explosion was the best part
It was like PopRocks, but better.
Most people say sodium is salt , our kitchen workers are under educated because pay is so low
I mean if some dumbass put this in a non labeled container and put it next to where they were making pretzels, the standard cafeteria person is going to ask themself, is that salt or sugar, and then say… That’s not sugar. And I’ve gotten pretzels before that have salt packets shipped with them, and the salt does not look like granulated salt you use as table salt. So if you are in a rush (say enough so that you have to have called in a substitute like said scenario) I could understand someone mistaking it.
The fault is on whomever removed the substance from a clearly labeled container, and then again on whomever left it in the kitchen next to the oven which the pretzels were presumed baked in.
That made it a bit confusing but it doesn’t seem to be actual lye or related to actually making pretzels, it wasn’t like they used lye leftover from pretzel making as topping.
The school district said the tainted pretzels were the result of “human error,” and that a kitchen worker thought the chemical cleaner was salt. Tigard Police reviewed the case last year, but did not file criminal charges.
The student at the center of the lawsuit, identified as L.L., ate one of the tainted pretzels and immediately felt burning in his mouth and throat, as well as chest pain and an upset stomach, according to the report.
I’m not overall a fan of wearing gloves when cooking, but rather I rely on handwashing (because gloves need to be changed every time you’d otherwise need to wash your hands anyways and nobody has good gloves habits in kitchens).
Using fingers to sprinkle the “salt” would give pretty immediate feedback to the cook.
I can’t imagine all the bad stuff that would happen eating lye. awful.
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