Mystery over slice of multi-grain bread in sealed tobacco pouch

Emma Fairbairn's daughter, Jessica, 22, visited the Countdown store in Massey, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, on April 29 to buy a 30g pouch of Port Royal tobacco for $35.90. The pouch was sealed in cellophane as per usual and Miss Fairbairn didn't notice anything awry. But after returning to her mother's home less than an hour later she opened it and was aghast to find not only was the tobacco missing but it had also been replaced with one slice of multi-grain bread.

"It looked like Molenberg," Mrs Fairbairn said. "It was folded in half, still fresh without any mould or anything. It was totally bizarre." Mrs Fairbairn returned to the supermarket to show the manager the unusual package, expecting a refund or replacement. To her shock, she received neither. "He took about 15 minutes and came back to say they wouldn't replace it because it was a security issue."



Mrs Fairbairn is a regular at the supermarket and a staff member told her it wasn't the first time bread had been found in a tobacco pouch, she said. A spokesperson for Countdown said they took customer complaints seriously and an investigation would be carried out but that it was unlikely the product had been tampered with. "Tobacco is stored in a secure location and is imported in a sealed pouch which is cellophane wrapped when sold.

"It would therefore be unusual to find a piece of fresh bread in a tobacco pouch, so it's not unreasonable that we would investigate what's happened." The spokesperson also confirmed a similar complaint was being investigated. Port Royal had gone out of its way to apologise for the error, Mrs Fairbairn said. A representative hand-delivered a fresh pouch of tobacco to their door on Wednesday along with an apology and the assurance of a full investigation into the matter.