Inquest of woman who died after eating Pret wrap to conclude

The inquest into the death of a woman with an acute dairy allergy, who died shortly after eating a Pret a Manger vegan wrap, is due to conclude.

Celia Marsh, 42, a dental nurse from Melksham, Wiltshire, died on December 27 2017 after eating a super-veg rainbow flatbread from the chain’s store in Bath, Somerset.

The coconut yoghurt used as dressing from Australian brand CoYo, which was licenced for manufacture in the UK to British firm Planet Coconut, is thought to have had traces of milk in it.

An inquest at Avon Coroner’s Court heard the mother-of-five avoided all dairy products following a near-fatal allergic reaction a few months earlier in which she needed 15 shots of adrenalin.

Maria Voisin, senior coroner for Avon, is due to deliver her conclusion in the case on Thursday morning.

Mrs Marsh had been on a post-Christmas shopping trip with her husband and three of her daughters when she went into Pret to buy something to eat at around 2pm.

She was declared dead less than two hours later.

The wrap had been consumed in its entirety, and the pot of CoYo brand yoghurt used to make it was thrown away before Bath and North East Somerset Council began its investigation.

But testing on other pots found small quantities of dairy protein in the product, with traces found in another rainbow wrap.

During the two-week inquest, a chemist acknowledged the quantity of dairy in the wrap was too low to be measured with any degree of accuracy, but said he believed it definitely contained milk.

It is thought the contamination stemmed from the HG1 starch in the yoghurt.

Interested parties in the inquest were Bath and North East Somerset Council, CoYo and Planet Coconut.