AUGUST 1, 2001

Chairman Kohl and Senator Dewine, I am David Burris from Baker City, Oregon. I have lived in Baker City most of my life and own and operate a small pet supply business there. Baker City is about 10,000 population and has a very interesting downtown historic district that has received national recognition for its restoration of gold mining area buildings. It is an excellent place to live and raise a family. As a resident I have always felt very secure. I felt this security till last year at Thanksgiving time when I was getting ready to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for my guests. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and tell you about an incident at that time that changed all of this.

On November 22, 2000 I went to my local Safeway supermarket which I shop at on a regular basis. As I was shopping I purchased a Jello No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake mix. Later that evening I decided to make it and when I opened the box I noticed a coupon. I decided to leave it in the box and retrieve it later before disposing of the box. When I went back to get the coupon, which was folded, I opened it and noticed a black Nazi swastika and some wording saying deport "the N word." It's best not to say the word. It also had the initials of a group and postal box number in Nebraska. This coupon had been made on a copying machine of some sort. At first I was totally shocked as I am very aware of the Aryan Nation group in Idaho. I thought this might be some sort of joke but realized it wasn't. I showed it to my guests and they were shocked also. As I talked with them about it we all decided that the cake itself could be contaminated. The consumer hotline number was on the box so I decided to call to let Jello know about this. When I contacted Jello the lady there said that she was going to put me right through to someone that knew more about this and they would talk to me. That person said they would like to have the box and the coupon. They asked me if was any signs of the box having been tampered with. I told her no, that the box had no signs and was heat sealed at the factory. They also asked me the name of the store and the street location of it. I was told by this person that a courier would be at my home the next morning at 10 AM to pickup the box and coupon. The courier arrived at 9:40 AM. He took possession of both the box and coupon and placed them in a Ziploc bag.

On November 28, 2000 I received a letter from Carla Mikell-executive representative at the Jell/Kraft Foods Consumer Resource and Information Center. She said she was sorry to learn about the offensive literature in the Jello No Bake Desert Cheesecake with Strawberry Topping. She said that my coupon sounded similar to reports they had of other consumers finding this sort of printed materials in a number of products..including those from different companies in the New Jersey stores. She told me that they were actively working with law enforcement and other companies to investigate the source of this printed material in New Jersey and that this might be related in some way. She was very nice and sent a number of free food coupons.

I have to say that since this incident I am very insecure with packaged food products I buy. I look at the box and if I notice anything unusual I avoid it. I doubt that I will ever feel secure again in this regard. It has also changed the way my friends shop too. Something must be done to protect people from this. If a coupon can be inserted in a box and a number of different companies products....what can these people do to the product? The fact that these products are distributed nationwide scares me. What if a child had opened a box and read this hateful material?

Thank you for letting me share my story. I hope it helps you to get some legislation passed that will deter this kind of activity.

David R. Burris