looks like someone at the bakery ran out of toilet paper.

It really does look like someone or something sliced into the bread while it was baking.

Hey, atleast shes not blaming the retailer like a lot of idiots would...

But no I dont know what it is, but go to the store and ASK POLITELY for an exchange, then call the company of Aunt Millie's and demand an explanation.

oh... and what I find the oddest is that it is inside the loaf in perfect lines. If it was the cutting machine wouldn't it have been smudged all the way down?

Stuart Little is driving a really tiny motorcycle over your bread at night.

A cutting blade for bread wouldn't just chop straight down, it would move in a regular back and forth motion while cutting, which would probably cause those lines. If it just chopped straight down, the bread would be crushed. But who knows, I'm no industrial baker.

marble rye?

Using my bakery work experience here: The bread twisted on the slicer so it was fixed in position and the friction of the blades in one spot burnt the bread.

Looks like someone greased up the blades of the bread-slicer machine and didn't clean it very well. Either that or they are burn spots...I'm not a baker, but I have used saw blades to cut strips of wood and the friction can sometimes cause a few burn spots on each piece.

Definitely looks like char marks from something, probably the cutter being overly hot due to being dull or something of the sort. Can't find any other way to explain why it;s on every single piece exactly the same way.

its flavor man!

From the looks of the picture, the black is *on* the bread, rather than *in* the bread. If it were, say, remnants of a different batch of food mixed in by accident.

This, however, looks like the slicing of a blade. I don't claim to be an expert and have never worked in a bakery, but loaves are put into automatic slicers "diagonally" with one corner down to let gravity do the work, rather than needing three sides around the bread.

Why does it always have to be Black lines. Maybe the rest of the bread is screwed up. Did you ever think of that?

And cue all the bread slicing engineer know it alls. :D

If something had cut into the bread while it was baking, the crust would be disturbed or similarly discolored.

Definitely the slicing machine. I'd say it was oil, but I'm pretty sure machines aren't cartoony enough to use crude oil as a lubricant. I don't know what that is.

I worked at a supermarket bakery on LI when I was 17 and would have to slice up the round rye breads before closing at night. Well, the whole building was overrun with mice and one of them must have scampered across the slicing machine to get at one of the loaves. You can imagine what I found after the machine stopped. I called the manager over the intercom--half hysterical--and he told me he would take care of it. I left for the night. The next day that machine was still in use! Not saying the black marks are anything um...organic in nature... but eeewwww... not a memory I wanted to dredge up from the mists of time.

@Sidecutter: Well, that's not too bad. It's already toasted. I'm surprised they didn't charge extra for this pre-toasted convenience.

All I want to know is, "Did you eat it?"

@suncoast.katie: Now that you mention it, it kind of looks like the charcoal-ish stuff left behind after you squish a spider.

That appears to be oil from the blades of the slicer.

The slicers used in industrial bakeries are like bandsaws with 20 blades. When a loaf goes through the slicer, it is pushed by the loaf behind it, so if the conveyor stops while a loaf is in the slicer, that loaf will spend some time with the blades just spinning against the bread. Most likely, the blades had just been changed and the protective oil covering had not yet been cleaned off. When I worked at a bakery, it would be standard practice to discard the first twenty or so loaves that pass through a new set of blades.

@P_Smith:
The blades are diagonal so that the crumbs can fall down into a collection trough and not onto the lower roller of the slicer.

@AlCzervic: Wow.

The cutting is about 3/4 of the way through.

[www.metacafe.com]

Like burnt toast? -- give it that treatment and you'll never know :)

@mgy: How big is the spider then?

What not give the baker (Aunt Millie's) a chance to correct the situation before posting the complaint on this website.

It is obviously a defect from the cutting blades. The pictures are great, so give the manufacturer a chance.

Now, if Aunt Millie takes a powder on this issue, by all means let's dump all over the company.

What did it taste like?

Did you call the customer service number on the bag of bread before you emailed the consumerist? It really looks like it was just some stuff on the cutting blade. It happens. Get a coupon for a couple of free loaves and move on.

@feralparakeet:
@Corporate-Shill:

By all means, don't tell anybody when something goes wrong. Just let the companies sweep it under the rug. Or into the bread slicing machine, if you will.

This guy should taste it. Don't you know it's recommended that you have at least 10g of oil in your daily diet...

The company will probably want to know the batch number and other relevant info from the packaging, so they can check the machine. It would be a good idea to call.

It's almost certainly a food safe lubricant. I would be pissed about this, yes, but it's a cosmetic issue, surely not a threat to your health.

i'm betting burn marks. the bread companies use a bunch of band saws hooked together to cut loafs, the saws must have just stopped in mid cut for some reason (someones finger in the way?, and it wasn't taken out of QQ because there were more pressing issues?)

If those were lines of char from burning the bread, wouldn't the *black* char be surrounded by a hint of browning?

Bread gets tan, then brown, before getting black.

Either something accidentally mixed into the loaf or some stubborn gunk on the cutter.

@Landru:

I am not giving a free pass to the manuafacturer, I am suggesting giving the manufacturer a chance to fix the problem before we jump on the manufacturer for farking up.

IF the OP gets free bread for life, the manufacturer has done an excellent job of fixing the problem. IF the OP gets a couple free loaves, the manufacturer has done a pretty good job of fixing the problem. IF the manufacturer says "fark you", then by all means let's burn them at the stake.

@hapless: Food safe lubricant or not, those gross black marks tell me "DO NOT EAT THIS."

@Corporate-Shill: I second that, and offer up the following previous article for proof it works:

[consumerist.com]

I agree, people seem to be missing the point of this blog (including the weekend moderators.) This isn't a 'product complaint' blog. It's a CUSTOMER SERVICE blog. If you haven't taken your problem to the customer service step yet, it doesn't belong here.

Shame on the submitter, and shame on Carey.

Hungry Grrl, pardon my rudeness, but since when do you decide what Consumerist is supposed to be? I enjoy all these posts, I think they are entertaining. Obviously the point of this blog is to be whatever Ben and his team think it should be. If you don't like a post then don't read it. But some of us are bored at work and want lots of posts on Consumerist!

@weakdome: hahahaha!

This isn't a 'product complaint' blog...If you haven't taken your problem to the customer service step yet, it doesn't belong here.

@HungryGrrl: Since when? I don't recall ever seeing a requirement from the Consumerist that we can only complain about the customer service. If the site is about empowering the consumer then doesn't it make sense to cover all consumer issues? Product complaints aren't exactly new to the site.

@DamThatRiver: I agree. Unless you're constipated ingesting even a safe lubricant can't be a good idea.

@HungryGrrl: SHAME!!!! SHAAAAME!

Now, WTF?!?

How many times do we have to keep repeating it, people? OPEN and check your damn purchases BEFORE you LEAVE the store. Preferrably when you are in the checkout line. You don't want to leave with a something that doesn't belong there, like a hard drive in a loaf of bread, do you?

@mariospants: Please tell me you're kidding. Who opens all their groceries in the grocery checkout line? Wouldn't that be incredibly unhygenic?

@mariospants: okay, go ahead. I'll be laughing when they have you removed from the store for acting like an escaped mental patient, opening and going through all your bread and cereal before leaving the checkout line.

Seat Belts for Bread?

Skid Marks?

I don't know what that is, but I'm glad I started making my own bread last week. One shouldn't have to speculate about black marks on newly-purchased bread. Ew.

Heh....taint.