Friday, February 11, 2011

Woman finds live snail in Tesco sandwich

A BBC worker was disgusted when she tucked into a Tesco Hoi Sin Duck Wrap – and bit down on a live snail. Sue Gray, 39, thought she had broken a tooth when she chomped into something crunchy in the £2.30 snack. But when she examined the contents she was disgusted to find she had bitten into a live snail – roughly the size of a £2 coin – and had snapped off part of its shell. She bought the handmade wrap at a Tesco Metro store on Bond Street in Leeds at 2pm last Tuesday 1 February.

Sue, a broadcast engineer for BBC Leeds, discovered the grisly contents when she ate it at her desk at 6.30pm that day. She said: ”I was in the newsroom at work eating it and then I crunched something which I first thought must be a loose filling. When I saw a piece of shell, I immediately spat the rest of the wrap out on to the packaging and saw the snail. The girl sat next to me was horrified and I felt awful. I ran to the toilets straight away to wash my mouth out and clean my hands.



”I’m just pleased I didn’t eat it as it could quite easily have made me sick. I haven’t been able to eat any sandwiches since unless I’ve made them myself.” Sue immediately took photos of the half-eaten wrap and the snail before contacting Tesco’s Customer Service Department. But the manager of the Bond Street store took three days to respond with an apology and the offer of a refund. Sue added: ”Tesco customer service have been dreadful, I have had to chase them over the space of three days to get a response from the store manager.

”He eventually rang me on Thursday apologising and asked me to take the goods in and he will refund me the cost of the wrap. If I had been offered some vouchers it would have been less of a blow. Eating the snail could have made me really ill so a simple refund just isn’t good enough.” A spokesman for Tesco said: ”We will investigate with the supplier, but we are surprised as this product is handmade.”

4 comments:

Flora said...

But is the snail ok? That's all I really want to know.

L said...

Eating it could have made her ill? Come on! Ever heard of escargot, lady?

"...he will refund me the cost of the wrap. If I had been offered some vouchers it would have been less of a blow. Eating the snail could have made me really ill so a simple refund just isn’t good enough."

Ahh... now the truth comes out. Looking for money/free stuff, are we?

Mitchell said...

Ever heard of escargot, lady?

Snails can harbor deadly parasites.

Ratz said...

If you're cooking snails you've found it's best to leave them alive and eating bread etc. for a few days first, just to clean out their digestive tract. It's not just parasites, but some of the things snails eat can be harmful to people too.