JC Reindl, and Zlati Meyer

Detroit Free Press

Battle Creek-based Kellogg on Monday apologized to customers over a video in which a man urinated into a Rice Krispies Treats production line. (Warning: Video contains graphic images.) The 2014 incident recently surfaced in an Internet video.

"Kellogg takes this situation very seriously and we are shocked and disappointed," company President Paul Norman said in a news release. "While this behavior was disgusting and criminal, this type of situation is a food-quality issue and does not present a food safety risk."

Kellogg said that law enforcement and the Food and Drug Administration have begun a criminal investigation.

The incident occurred at the firm's Memphis, Tenn., plant during a period of strained labor relations and potentially affected Kellogg's Rice Krispies Treats, granola clusters and a few other puffed rice products that are no longer made. Rice Krispies cereal was not affected, the company said.

A video was posted Friday on the website World Star Hip Hop(Warning: Video contains graphic images) that shows a man urinating onto a moving conveyor belt with puffed rice. The company said it determined the video was from 2014 because of changes in the plant's production line.

Kellogg spokeswoman Kris Charles said that at separate times in 2014, there were both Kellogg and temporary workers in the Memphis plant.

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The National Labor Relations Board has held that Kellogg engaged in an unlawful nine-month employee lockout at the plant of more than 200 workers from October 2013 to August 2014. The board ordered Kellogg to reinstate the locked-out unionized workers and compensate them for lost pay.

The lockout was precipitated by Kellogg's attempts to modify a labor contract by bringing in "casual" workers to the plant who would be paid $6 less per hour and receive fewer benefits. The plant's unionized workers also could have been laid off and then rehired as "casual" workers under the company's proposal, which the employees' union rejected.

California-based food safety consultant Jeff Nelken said Monday that the video suggests a breach in the plant’s security system, as there typically are several people along a production line who might have seen what was happening.

“If a person is able to do something so strange and no one is watching, it’s pretty scary," Nelken said. "Nowadays even when dog food is produced, there’s more than one person watching the assembly line.”

Kellogg said it did not receive any customer complaints that could have been related to the urination incident.

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