Mr Aburn's partner, Jacqui Hawkins, said she randomly took a sweet from the bag and found it was shaped in the form of male genitals. Another sweet in the bag was a gummy baby with a penis, she said. ''I don't find anything amusing about it at all. I find it disgusting,'' she said. Dutch Rusk managing director Willem Van de Geest, of Nelson, said the Stoke confectionery company imported 7200 bags of mixed gummy sweets, called Dragon Sweets, from a Chinese manufacturer about six weeks ago.
The sweets were distributed to shops in the lower South Island. About two weeks later, complaints started coming in about the sweets, Mr Van de Geest said. He was unaware ''inappropriate'' sweets were inside the bags. ''You have to look at it two or three times to think that doesn't look right.'' The offensive sweet was a gummy bear, and not a gummy baby, he said. The sweets were a ''one-off'' and he had recalled and dumped thousands of bags. ''It won't happen again,'' he said
Mr Van de Geest said he had imported sweets from around the world for 25 years and an offensive sweet had never been included in a mix before. The manufacturers had sent him a letter apologising for the mistake and had refunded some money. The sweets were originally designed for sale in England and were not considered offensive in Asia. In Asia, the shape was considered a sign of fertility and health, he said. ''They wouldn't even blink an eyelid. We see it as offensive. We don't mind a hand or a foot being part of a sweet but we object to a breast or a penis.'' He has apologised to Mr Aburn and offered him some ''appropriate'' sweets for free.
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