British firm fined after Brazilian housewife finds used condom in tin of tomato paste

British firm Unilever has been fined £3,100 by a Brazilian court after a housewife found a used condom in a tin of tomato paste. Cintia Mayerle and her family had already eaten the meal prepared with the paste when she discovered the rubber condom as she poured the remainder into a storage jar.

Mrs Mayerle, from Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil, took the tin of Knorr tomato paste and its contents to the local university for analysis. But she claims Unilever refused to believe that the condom had been found inside their product.



The company told Brazil's Supreme Court that the offending article could not have been inserted into the tin at the factory because the process is fully mechanised. But the court ruled in Mrs Mayerle's favour and also awarded her £1,110 for moral damages she claimed to have suffered.

She said: 'It was the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me. I think it will stay in my memory for a very long time.' Unilever was founded in England in the 1890s and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of consumer goods, with brands including Knorr, Bertolli, Wall's and Flora.