A concerned mom said that the Kirkland apple sauce packets she’s feeding to her children are now being given to her pigs after she found mold in them.
Family farm vloggers @thegomesohana posted about the discovery in a viral TikTok that’s accrued over 6.4 million views on the popular social media application.
“This is why my kids have had non stop chronic coughs!” the parent writes in a text overlay of the clip that begins with her setting her phone down in the kitchen. She then grabs a reusable shopping bag from off-camera and pulls out two squeeze-pouches of Kirkland-branded apple sauce from them.
“I’ve got a whole box of these. I’m feeding them to my pigs now,” she says, cracking open one of them and then dumping its contents into a container. “Because these are rubbish. They’re super moldy I can taste the mold, smell the mold. They’re moldy. I’m not feeding them to my kids, anymore.”
At the end of her video, she shows a screenshot of search engine results, indicating that she isn’t the first or only customer to have this gripe with the Costco offering.
Tons of folks have complained on social media about mold they’ve found in similarly packed apple sauce containers. One Redditor uploaded a photo showing what looks like mold forming near the cap area of their applesauce pouch.
This 2017 Good Housekeeping article also covered a viral post from a mother who cut open one such applesauce packet to show off the mold that formed inside of it. Romper, another outlet that covered the story, urged folks not to become too alarmed upon seeing the mold formations inside of the pouches, presumably because the child of the concerned mom in question was medically cleared by their pediatrician.
At the time, the manufacturer of the specific mold packet that the GH article references, Mott’s, released the following statement pertaining to the matter, as per the outlet: “Nothing is more important to us than the well-being of our consumers and the safety and quality of our products. We’ve analyzed samples held from the same production run and found no issues. We have also received no similar, related calls or complaints from other people that could be connected to the issue in this consumer’s social media posts. Nevertheless, we are continuing our investigation and working to obtain the affected product from the consumer so we can inspect the packaging and determine a root cause.”
Other TikTok users, like @kait.slate, also cut open a pouch of Mott’s apple sauce, only to reveal what appears to be mold inside of the packaging, which she shows off to the camera in her clip.
@thegomesohana #moldyfoods #kirklandapplesauce #pigfood #moldykidsfood #moldinmyfood #moldpoisoning #mould #applesauce #reusablepouches #molddetox #pigfarming #organicfoods ♬ original sound – TheGomesFarm
Commenters who responded to @thegomesohana’s TikTok had a variety of different responses.
One person who said that they also kept a supply of Kirkland apple sauce packets in their home wrote that when they checked the pouches, they didn’t find anything strange inside of them. “I checked my Kirkland but they weren’t moldy,” they said.
This sentiment was echoed by another person on the platform. “Weird. I just saw your video and went and cut open 4. All clean inside and smelt fresh,” they wrote.
However, someone else seemed to think that their own daughter may have gotten ill consuming a squeezable apple sauce packet. “This is weird, but my daughter ended up in the hospitalized after having these we went to Mexico that weekend I came back and they blame it on Méx,” the TikToker claimed.
Another viewer wrote that they believe their child may’ve fallen ill as a result of eating these apple sauce pouches as well. “My son used to have these when he was 8 months-2.5 years. When he stopped his breathing hasn’t been an issue since. Omg . Was this the underlying issu[e?]” they asked.
Someone else penned their solution to the apple sauce moldy pouch dilemma: “This is why I had bought the refillable pouches. they are easy to clean and I know what is going into them.”
This seems like something several people are doing, judging by the video’s comment replies. Another user wrote, “I got reusable pouches on Amazon and refill them with apple sauce and yogurt myself. I don’t trust premade one bcus of this.”
There were some other folks who had a more critical response to the TikToker’s video.
One user penned, “Just buy real food not pouch food. that’s why they invented spoons and forks.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Costco via email and @thegomesohana via TikTok comment for further information.