Lawsuit after Oregon school serves pretzels seasoned with oven cleaner

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 26 Oct, 17:57 · Archive

More than 50 students at an Oregon middle school were served pretzels seasoned with crushed oven cleaner containing caustic sodium hydroxide.

More than 50 sixth-graders at Fowler Middle School in the Tigard-Tualatin School District in Oregon consumed pretzels seasoned with crushed oven cleaner on 20 October 2025. The chemical cleaner, which contains highly corrosive sodium hydroxide, was not properly stored in the kitchen. According to the lawsuit, 37 pretzels coated with the cleaner were served to students during lunch, with about 50 students eating them shortly after 10:30am.

A student identified as L.L. immediately felt burning in his mouth and throat after eating the pretzel. The boy also suffered burns to his GI tract and came home with a sore throat and stomach pain. He has since experienced lingering anxiety about eating food at school. The lawsuit names the school's lead kitchen worker and Principal Cindy Pellicci as defendants, along with the school district itself.

A substitute kitchen worker discovered the error when she tasted the seasoning, felt a burn, and found the discarded packet labelled as oven cleaner. The school contacted Poison Control about 27 minutes after realizing what had happened. However, the boy was kept in a room for over an hour without his parents being notified, and staff sent him back to class claiming he was asymptomatic. Parents were not emailed about the incident until roughly two hours after the students ate the contaminated pretzels. The district determined the incident resulted from human error, while police closed their investigation without establishing probable cause.

How it is being reported

• School burned boy's throat after cafeteria served up pretzels dusted with chemical cleaner instead of salt, $1m lawsuit allegesA sixth-grade boy suffered burns to his throat and GI tract after he consumed a soft pretzel at Fowler Middle School on October 20, 2025, that was dusted with a chemical cleaner, according to a lawsuit.Daily Mail · 26 Oct, 17:42
• Lawsuit with a twist: More than 50 students served pretzels seasoned with oven cleanerAfter eating a pretzel laced with the caustic chemical cleaner — which contains highly corrosive sodium hydroxide — a student immediately felt burning in his mouth and throat.New York Post · 25 Oct, 20:21

In this story: Fowler Middle School · Tigard-Tualatin School District · Oregon · Cindy Pellicci · Joyce A Webb

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