Woman’s horror at 'naturally occurring matter' discovered in egg

A shocked woman believes she found a chicken embryo inside a supermarket egg she was eating for breakfast. Natalie Rowe,  25,  made the grizzly discovery as she ate the Tesco Value egg which she bought from the superstore in Padiham, Lancashire. The mental health nurse said she was physically sick when she spotted the inch-long clump in her boiled egg which she said looked like it had eyes.



The egg was sent off for investigation but suppliers of the retail giant told Natalie it was “impossible” that it could be the remains of a baby chicken and said it was likely to be a blood or meat clot. Tesco said it was a small amount of “naturally occurring matter” which had not been detected. But Natalie says it has put her off eggs for life. She said: “I thought I had cooked the egg wrong. I had already eaten half of it. I lifted the thing out and it was a growth. It was about an inch long.

“ To me I thought it was an embryo or something but they insisted it was not. It had two black dots in that if you look could be taken for eyes. It was pretty grim whatever it was. It has put me off eggs. I can’t face them now.” Natalie’s mother Tracie also inspected the egg before taking it back to managers at the store. Tracie said: “She was physically sick. She has not touched a boiled egg since. We took it to the manager and he said he had never seen anything like it before. They said they would send it off to be analysed.”



After a month of waiting they got a final response from Tesco and an offer of a £10 gift voucher. “They said it was not a developing chicken, but whenever it was it was not very nice,” said Natalie. “Because they were from battery hens they said there was no way possible that a cockerel could have got in. I am not satisfied with the response from Tesco.” A Tesco spokesman said: “We have very high standards of food quality, and the supplier has conducted a thorough investigation into this. There was a small amount of naturally occurring material inside the egg that was unfortunately not detected, and for which we apologise.”