Stockholm- Police have ruled out a targeted campaign of sabotage against Swedish poultry producers or other food companies despite numerous incidents of pieces of glass found in chicken and other food. "In our view this is not a coordinated attack against food supplies," Anders Wretling of the National Criminal Police told the Saturday edition of Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter.

"These are separate cases," he added, saying the police had no knowledge of extortion attempts against food producers.

Police have compiled some 80 instances of finds of glass, needles and pieces of plastic in recent weeks of which 30 were related to chicken.

The finds of glass that were reported at the end of March forced the recall of frozen chicken products by a leading producer, Lantmannen Kronfagel.

Police have not ruled out that some cases were false alerts, perhaps fuelled by attempts to grab media attention citing experience from food scares in other countries.

Dick Malmlund, head of security at the Swedish Trade Federation that groups companies in the retail business, said he wanted stiffer penalties for false alerts.

Lantmannen Kronfagel and other producers have in the meantime stepped up inspections at their facilities.(dpa)