Maggot in chicken noodles - but just 25p compensation

Malika Carrington, a nine-year-old schoolgirl from Longsight in Greater Manchester, had cooked herself a bowl of Asda chicken noodles, but just as she was about to take her first mouthful, she made a horrible discovery: in among the noodles was a maggot.

Her mother Keisha (28) told the Manchester Evening News: "I couldn't believe it when Malika showed me. She didn't realise what it was initially, but I could see it was a maggot straight away. I was fuming. All I could think was how on earth did it get in there?" She said that her daughter had been put off noodles for life.
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Keisha took the packet back to Asda, and was given a 25p refund and a 'goodwill' payment. But what shocked her most was that she had only been offered 25p to make up for her discovery. Asda apologised and the Metro reported that it would be carrying out an investigation into how the maggot got into the noodles. Keisha was unimpressed with their apology, saying: "I'm sorry but I just don't think that's good enough."

Bugged by insects

The problem the suppliers and the supermarkets have is that they're dealing with food, which attracts bugs. It's their job to make sure the critters don't find their way into the food supply, and in the case of keeping flies away from chicken or noodles it seems like the very least we can ask. However, it isn't the first time that bugs have outwitted the food scientists and ended up on the plate.

In October 2013 we reported on the mother from Bournemouth who poured a packet of pasta into a saucepan of boiling water and noticed hundreds of tiny black dots rise to the surface. On closer inspection, she found that the pasta had been crawling with weevils.

The previous July, it was a Burger King customer in County Durham who came face to face with a slug in his burger.

Last October we reported on the oranges bought from Tesco which were harbouring a wriggling maggot and hundreds of eggs.

That same month, one Kent diner found a centipede in his microwave Tesco curry. What was particularly odd was that despite the fact it was microwaved, the hardy pest was still alive.

The previous May a M&S customer had found a one-inch long dead beetle in her salad.

But perhaps the most disgusting bug to find in your food would be a cockroach. So spare a thought for the Leeds pizza fan who found one of the offending creatures baked into the crust of her pizza. The takeaway which supplied it was shut down after an inspection found cockroaches in the chiller and running up and down the walls. It was also fined £2,000 for hygiene breaches.

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