On Jan. 15, 2024, a Facebook user claimed in a post that an Ohio family had found what appeared to be some sort of white, oblong prescription drugs inside a sealed bag of Reese's Pieces. According to the post, the candy package filled with pills was purchased from a Kroger Marketplace grocery store in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna. Snopes received reader mail asking about the post.
"Parents beware! Gahanna police told them it has been an issue with drugs being filtered through Krogers," the user posted. (The user's name has been withheld from this reporting as it's unclear if that person is a minor.)
(Source: Facebook Post)
Under the post, one commenter wrote, "Thankfully, it doesn't look like the candy, so most kids would probably not try it... unless they were teens! I'm afraid of fentanyl being on things."
Another person asked the user who made the post, "Was the seal broken?" They responded, "It was not."
To investigate this claim, Snopes reached out to the Gahanna Police Department, Kroger, the Facebook user who made the post and The Hershey Company, which owns Reese's Pieces.
The Pills Were Handed Over to Police
The Gahanna Police Department provided Snopes with a report that had been filed by its officers.
The report said that on Jan. 15, a man had brought to the police station a package of Reese's Pieces containing white pills. The man told police that the product had been purchased from the Kroger Marketplace store at 300 S. Hamilton Road in Gahanna. "When they noticed the pills inside, they brought them directly to the police station," the officer's report read, which also noted that the pills were "not marked with any markings, colors or stamps." The bag of pills was then impounded and placed in an evidence bag, according to the report.
The Facebook user's post claimed that one or more officers with the Gahanna Police Department said that there was "an issue with drugs being filtered through Kroger." However, Daniel Pearlman, the public information officer for the city of Gahanna, said that this was not true.
"The resident who reported this told our officer that he heard something about a Kroger distribution center from his neighbor who is an officer for another jurisdiction," Pearlman said, in an email to Snopes. "As the body camera footage shows, our officer stated that he had not heard that." (Snopes has not reviewed this body camera footage.)
Facebook Post Is No Longer Available
Snopes also sent an inquiry via Messenger on Jan. 16 to the Facebook user who posted the claim. In response, the user blocked Snopes' account. As of Jan. 19, the original Facebook post was no longer publicly available and appeared to have been either deleted or only made available to a select audience.
No Word from Kroger
Snopes placed phone calls and sent emails to both regional and national media relations representatives for Kroger, including a Kroger distribution center located close to Gahanna. As of this writing, no responses had been received after more than 24 hours.
Response from Hershey
In our outreach to Hershey, company spokesperson Todd Scott told us by email, "We don’t have any record of a complaint on this issue." He also added, "If you’re in touch with them, we’d love to hear from them directly to learn more. Our consumer relations department would be happy to listen to their story." Snopes then informed Scott that the user had blocked our messages and that we were not able to reach them either by Messenger or by any other publicly-listed methods.
This story will be updated if we receive any further details or responses from our outreach.