Orange News UK wrote: The maker of Hovis has been fined after a dead mouse was found in one of its loaves.
Shocked father Stephen Forse spotted the mouse in a loaf he was using to make sandwiches for his children.
Mr Forse bought the bread from Tesco Online and had already used some of it when he noticed "a dark-coloured object embedded in the corner of three or four slices".
The 41-year-old father from Kidlington in Oxfordshire first though it was a section of unmixed dough but quickly realised his mistake.
"As I looked closer, I saw that the object had fur on it," he said.
The situation was made even worse when an environmental health officer, who had called to gather evidence, found that the mouse was without a tail.
"Her comments made me feel ill once again as there was no indication as to where the tail was," said Mr Forse.
"Had it fallen off prior to the bread being wrapped or had any of my family eaten it with another slice of bread on a previous day?"
Manufacturer Premier Foods was fined £5,500 and ordered to pay £11,109.47 in costs at Oxford Crown Court for failing to maintain acceptable standards at their site in Mitcham, south London.
A spokesman for Premier Foods said: "We apologise profusely for the distress caused as a result of this isolated incident."
Gross. But some of the smartass comments from readers are hilarious. I'll share a couple:
Tammy from Stoke wrote:
"Hovis - bread wi nowt tekken owt lol"
Tony Blair wrote:
"I Think The Mouse's Family Should Sue"
Blue Toffee from Everton wrote:
"Perhaps the mouse could come back to life if the bakers used self-raising flour...."
But seriously, that fine should have probably been a hundred grand for something so flagrant.
I recon that many folk who have ever worked in a food factory know processed food isnt always 100% hygenic, especially if its labour intensive and handled allot.
Premier Foods are pretty much like that. The fines they have been given are the equivalent of someone smacking us on the back of our hand and taking away 3GBP from us and saying NOW YOU BE GOOD!
Anyone remember the supermarket chain Food Lion in the U.S.?
in the early 90's they were caught washing their rancid / rotten maggot infested meat in bleach then putting it out for sale. They were promptly run out of business from fines and public backlash.
Edit: Did some research, and I stand corrected - It seems they exited the city I lived in (D/FW), but they're still around in the northeast.
Last edited by rancor on Fri Oct 01, 2010 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rancor wrote:Anyone remember the supermarket chain Food Lion in the U.S.?
in the early 90's they were caught washing their rancid / rotten maggot infested meat in bleach then putting it out for sale. They were promptly run out of business from fines and public backlash.
AFAIK, the chain is still in business, and those practices were only seen at a handful of stores in one area.
We've had Kentucky Fried Rat too, but nothing NOTHING compares to the Spanish Organophoshate Pesticide deaths about 29 years ago. Its publicly known as the 'cooking oil disaster' but it had nothing to do with cooking oil.
Basically some Spanish farmer who couldn't read, spread a whole drum (or more) of OP Pesticide on his tomato crop in Almeria. Several thousand times the dose the crop needed :!:
[b]The Guardian article[/b]; [quote]Twenty years ago, the Spanish "cooking oil" disaster began as a mystery illness. Years later, the toll was put at more than 1,000 deaths and more than 25,000 seriously injured, [i][b]many of whom were permanently disabled[/b][/i]. It was the most devastating food poisoning in modern European history[/quote]
The lucky ones died.
The unlucky ones lived.
HORRIBLE deformities resulted from eating those tomatoes. I saw the documentary on it a few years ago but there has been a huge coverup and I was surprised today that I can not find the horrendous pictures of the victims on the net. Its been massively hushed up.
The pictures of the victims were SCARY, their limbs had curved up. Think filidimide children with no arms and legs and then apply that kinda shit to people who had just eaten tomatoes.
Last edited by DEL on Sat Oct 02, 2010 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Then there's also the Ginger Jake incident from the Prohibition era. Blues music from that time mentioned the "Jake Walk" which came from neurologic damage. This Jamaican ginger extract contained 70% alcohol (so people drank it to skirt the alcohol ban) and was eventually adulterated with Triorthocresyl Phosphate (TOCP) which was probably the same stuff in the cooking oil. Ginger Jake was intended for medicinal use.
