General Mills CEO says it's 'highly unlikely' that any shrimp tails went into Cinnamon Toast Crunch at its facility

• General Mills CEO said Wednesday that the company takes food safety "very seriously."
• A comedian on Twitter claimed there were shrimp tails in his box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
• He's now mailing samples to the company, which says any contamination was not from its facility.

General Mills takes food safety "very seriously" and it is "highly unlikely" that any shrimp tails or other crustacean contamination came from its facility, CEO Jeff Harmening told CNBC Wednesday.

Harmening's interview comes the day after a comedian's claims of finding shrimp tails inside a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from Costco was shared widely on social media. Jensen Karp's tweet, which includes a photo of the alleged shrimp tails, now has more than 14,000 retweets and 144,000 likes.

"It is not a new flavor variety," Harmening continued. "The only place I know that we have shrimp in our product is in our cat food business."

Cinnamon Toast Crunch's official Twitter account tweeted that it would report Karp's claim to the company before tweeting an official statement later in the day. "We can say with confidence that this did not occur at out facility," it said Tuesday, adding that it was waiting to receive the cereal for further investigation.

"After further investigation with our team that closely examined the image, it appears to be an accumulation of the cinnamon sugar that sometimes can occur when ingredients aren't thoroughly blended," the statement said.

Harmening told CNBC that General Mills is looking into what happened between the cereal leaving the company's facility and Karp opening it. He says the General Mills is taking the situation seriously and working with Karp.

In Karp's most recent tweet, he said that he is waiting for an envelope from General Mills so he can mail the company samples for further investigation.

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