WESTON, Fla. — The mother of a Weston teenager who died after taking a bite from a Chips Ahoy cookie containing peanut butter is reaching out to fellow parents on Facebook to spread awareness about the brands’ packaging for cookies with allergens.
Alexi Ryann Stafford, 15, was at a friend’s house June 25 when she opened a package of chewy Chips Ahoy Reese’s peanut butter cookies that she thought was safe because of the red packaging she was familiar with, according to her mother, Kellie Travers-Stafford.
“The top flap of the package was pulled back and the packaging was too similar to what we had previously deemed ‘safe’ to her,” she posted on Facebook July 12.
“She started feeling tingling in her mouth and came straight home. Her condition rapidly deteriorated,” she added.
Two EpiPens were administered and the teen went into anaphylactic shock, stopped breathing and became unconscious, according to her mother.
“She died on June 25, within one and a half hours of eating that cookie,” Travers-Stafford wrote in the post in which she added a photo of the chewy Chips Ahoy Reese’s peanut butter cookies next to the regular chewy kind to highlight how they have similar red packaging. But the photo also shows how the top package has a Reese’s logo which is noticeable in the top right corner.
Company responds
She also added the similar-looking brown packaging of the regular and peanut butter flavors of the company’s soft chunky cookie brand.
“As a mother who diligently taught her the ropes of what was okay to ingest and what was not, I feel lost and angry because she knew her limits and was aware of familiar packaging, she knew what ‘safe’ was,” she noted in the post which has been shared 69,000 times and has 17,000 comments.
Responding to a user on Twitter, Chips Ahoy issued a statement, “We take allergies very seriously. Chewy Chips Ahoy! made w/Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups packaging clearly shows that it contains peanuts through words and visuals. Package color indicates Chewy, Chunky, or Original. Consumers should always read the label for allergy information.”
