Grandmother unhappy about finding dead mouse in her cornflakes

A grandmother has told of the moment she poured her grandson his cereal only to see a crispy mouse drop into the bowl. Pauline Henderson bought the Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Cornflakes from her local Tesco in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and was preparing breakfast for young Toby. But the 50-year-old was left disgusted when she spotted the rodent in the bowl. Luckily, Toby had yet to tuck in.



She said: "It was horrible. If Toby had eaten it I could have been rushing him to hospital. I put the box and the mouse in the freezer until an environmental health officer came over. It’s annoying because I won’t go near any of my food in there." Ms Henderson went back to the store later that day to make a formal complaint. She said: "The first man that served me laughed and I was like 'it’s not funny, do you see me laughing?'.

"Then the manager came out and asked for a receipt but I couldn’t find it. I know when I bought it so I don’t see why they can’t just check the CCTV. I went back on Monday, and all the boxes are still on the shelves – if one of them had a mouse any one of the others could too." A spokesman for Tesco said: "We set ourselves the highest standards for the quality and safety of the food we sell and were concerned to hear of this.



"We would like to thank Mrs Henderson for alerting us and we will work with the supplier to support their investigation." According to Ms Henderson, there was no damage to the box prior to opening it. She added: "I spoke to Kellogg’s and they didn’t really seem interested. They asked me if I wanted another box and I said 'no I do not'." A Kellogg’s spokesman said: "We received a call from the customer and are carrying out a full investigation to identify if and how this occurred as it hasn’t happened before. We take food safety extremely seriously and carry out regular quality checks in our factories."