Will the salad bar return?

So, two Sizzler restaurants in Brisbane have had rat poison found in the salad bar food. This may be an evil plan to rid the city of uni students and pensioners. The story raises some questions:

* from the article in yesterday's Courier Mail:

Police would like help from the woman who alerted CBD staff to the presence of green pellets in the soup about 5pm on Saturday.

She left before police arrived and staff did not have her name. She is not a suspect.

There's even a photo of her on the website. While it is all very well to say she is not a suspect, isn't use of the phrase "police are looking for a man/woman who may be able to help with their enquires" always the coded way of saying the person is indeed a suspect? Like saying "there were no suspicious circumstances" about a death of a youngish person found alone usually means "suicide". What's the betting that she really is the suspect?

* From the article in the Courier Mail today:

SIZZLER claims it took 37 days to become aware that the green pellets found in a tub of pasta sauce at its Toowong store were rat poison.

The company's chief, Bo Ryan, who has been at the helm for 17 years, said he did not know of the poisoning finding until yesterday – a day after two of his staff fell ill after tasting contaminated soup at the smorgasbord chain's CBD restaurant.

"Obviously there are some lessons learnt in terms of the evaluation of the product from Toowong," he said.

Mr Ryan said it was normal protocol to send foreign objects found in food to a New Zealand laboratory for testing. But he admitted the company, which has been operating in Australia for 20 years, had no contingency plan in place to deal with food poisoning.

Five weeks to find out what that strange thing in the food is? That sure indicates Sizzlers puts high priority on checking the quality of its food, doesn't it?. If only terrorists had known this. They could have poisoned thousands this way and still had time to take a Gold Coast holiday before leaving the country.

I wonder if there may be some class action law firm advertising for anyone wanting to bring a action over this?

UPDATE: a 57 year old woman has been arrested over this. I don't know if it is supposed to be the same woman in the photos published yesterday, but it seems a fair bet. From the article in the Courier Mail:

[Queensland Health Minister] Mr Robertson said Sizzler's handling of the situation had not been ideal....

Understatement of the year, considering this:

One of the affected consumers, Sarah Kenny, knew something wasn't right when she tasted the "foul" spaghetti bolognaise at Sizzler in January.

But it was not until she heard news reports yesterday that she discovered she and her friends may have eaten rat poison.

I wonder what shares in the company are worth today...