Via Purcell International, via Austrofood SAS. Apparently Austrofood were using "cinnamon raw material" with elevated levels of lead.
But cinnamon is a flavouring agent, making up a small proportion of the pouch products. Lead salts taste sweet; cinnamon isn't supposed to taste sweet on its own. So I have to wonder how much lead was in these cinnamon "raw material"? This isn't the usual long-term lead poisoning you get from lead water-pipes; this was acute poisoning.
It seems to me more likely that Austrofood was using apples that weren't sweet enough, so somewhere in the supply chain some bozo added lead salts. People expect apples to be sweet, but not cinnamon.
It's Austrofood that makes these products, and bags them up in pouches. They started selling into the US market in 2019.
[Edit] Austrofoods started out farming "guanabana", a product I'd never heard of before today. Apparently it has a taste like apples and strawberries, with sour, citrus notes. It's texture is like bananas; so perhaps it's good for making apple sauce, if you sweeten it a bit, maybe with lead.
Lead salt is (unethically) compelling in cinnamon to make it more vibrantly colored. It's not being added as a sweetener, assuming it's being adulterated at all. The less unethical, but still harmful possibility is that leaded gas powered machinery is being used in/near the processing of this cinnamon and the exhaust particulate is contaminating the product. There have been cases of tea leaves being contaminated this way as they were driving a leaded gas powered truck back and forth over the leaves to help dry them with the wind.
Guanabana is quite sweet on its own. Certainly enough for kids. It's got a slight tang, but there's plenty of sugar.
Guanabana is an Annonaceae also called soursop. It is really good but it could also a dangerous thing to eat every day due to its annonacin (and related) content that can lead to neurotoxicity.
But cinnamon is a flavouring agent, making up a small proportion of the pouch products. Lead salts taste sweet; cinnamon isn't supposed to taste sweet on its own. So I have to wonder how much lead was in these cinnamon "raw material"? This isn't the usual long-term lead poisoning you get from lead water-pipes; this was acute poisoning.
It seems to me more likely that Austrofood was using apples that weren't sweet enough, so somewhere in the supply chain some bozo added lead salts. People expect apples to be sweet, but not cinnamon.
Austrofood appears to be an Ecuadorian company:
https://advanceglobalcap.com/astrofood-a-sustainable-busines...
It's Austrofood that makes these products, and bags them up in pouches. They started selling into the US market in 2019.
[Edit] Austrofoods started out farming "guanabana", a product I'd never heard of before today. Apparently it has a taste like apples and strawberries, with sour, citrus notes. It's texture is like bananas; so perhaps it's good for making apple sauce, if you sweeten it a bit, maybe with lead.