Woman perturbed by Waitrose frozen prawns that glowed in the dark

A former Mayor of Wandsworth in London feared she was going mad when frozen prawns bought from Waitrose started glowing in the dark. Tina Thompson, 69, from Stoneleigh, Surrey had defrosted the supermarket's prawns for brunch then later gave some to her cats when her husband noticed them glowing on a saucer in their dark kitchen. Mrs Thompson said: "Just to make sure I had not gone completely mad I took this saucer next door to show my neighbour. They were still glowing the next morning when I went down to Waitrose.



"I took them down in a box and said ‘if you go into a dark room you will see they are glowing’." After the visit to Waitrose she received letters from the customer sales and support team in which they say that prawns are sometimes caught with plankton and the bacteria may be Pseudomonas fluorescens which is harmless. She said: "They have not told me what species of plankton or bacteria survives boiling and freezing. I don’t think it is an unreasonable request to know what I have eaten." She even wondered if radioactive water from a leaking atomic power station in Japan could reach Indonesia where the prawns were farmed.

She said: "It’s probably highly unlikely but I feel I would like to be reassured. I would like to know the species so I could go to the Natural History Museum, contact the New Scientist or look it up online." Mrs Thompson, who once told a breastfeeding councillor to leave a meeting, while she was the Conservative Mayor of Wandsworth from 1997 to 1998, said: "I really don’t like being fobbed off. I’m a very determined lady. I wrote to Waitrose and said I was severely disappointed. If they are going to treat a loyal customer with such disregard, and what I consider contempt, I don’t want to shop there anymore. It’s a reasonable question, I don’t want them to sweep it under the carpet."



A Waitrose spokesman said: "Bacteria is all around us and although we don’t see this occur very often but occasionally naturally-occurring, harmless bacteria (known as photobacterium) may be found on fish and shellfish. At certain temperatures and certain times of year - even after freezing or cooking - these may be seen to ‘glow’. We appreciate how this may be startling if someone sees this for the first time but would reassure any customer that this is harmless and is safe to eat. We have written to Mrs Thompson directly and would like to apologise for any concern caused."