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A LARGE BLACK beetle was found inside a pre-washed bag of salad purchased in a Dublin Tesco.
The woman who bought the salad told TheJournal.ie, “I normally purchase the bagged washed salads from supermarkets, and on this occasion I bought rocket/watercress in Tesco.
I was making myself a salad and was pouring the contents of the bag of salad onto the plate, when I spotted something big and black moving in the bag. A large black beetle and it was alive.
The woman added that as the pack was already washed according to the packaging, she would have thought a beetle of this size would have been picked up on during the process.
The salad was purchased in the Tesco in Clarehall Shopping Centre on Malahide Road, Coolock on Saturday 14 April.
The customer said she contacted the head office on Monday 16 April and was told to drop it into the local store, which she did the next day.
She said details were recorded when she dropped of the salad and she received a €20 voucher but that she didn’t hear back about if the sample was sent to the quality department for an investigation.
The woman said she called the store the following week and was told that the sample she dropped in was still out the back.
I am not looking for money, I am looking to gain confidence again in the product, as this was a weekly purchase of mine and now I have gone completely off bagged salad.
“I wanted to be assured that their supplier was meeting quality standards … as how on earth could a live beetle that size get through a quality check, never mind a cleaning process.”
The woman was only contacted by Tesco after TheJournal.ie made contact with the store about the case.
She was told that all products go through rigorous quality checks and hers was an exception.
However she said, “It’s back to butterhead lettuce for me from now on.”
TheJournal.ie asked Tesco if it sent the sample to a quality department for investigation and if it made any changes to its systems since the beetle was found.
In a statement a spokesperson for Tesco said, “We have extremely high standards for our products we put on our shelves and our growers work hard to inspect our salads carefully, so it’s extremely rare to hear of this sort of incident.
All of our bagged salad produce is sourced from approved suppliers, washed and quality checked before being delivered to stores. We are investigating how this may have happened with our supplier.
“We have tried to contact the customer directly to apologise for the inconvenience caused and to offer a gesture of goodwill by way of further apology.”
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It happens from time to time. Salads are plants and come from the earth. Get over it
@Billy Connelly: how on EARTH is this news?
@Billy Connelly: most of the commercial salads are actually
@William Bayle: grown in swimming pools
@William Bayle: dont you mean hydroponics? What about organic? Someone would have to swim in it for it to be a swimming pool btw ;) I take your point however insects have a penchant for veggies and occasionally get caught up in the washing process. Tescos should be reprimanded for Cruelty to animals
@DaisyMay: I know and who sent it in to the Journal as a story? Ffs. People are so prissy these days
@Billy Connelly: The journal are worse for posting it.
@DaisyMay: I know they’ve really let their high standards drop haven’t they
@Billy Connelly: Get over it? They are supposed to be ‘washed and prepared’! .That’s their unique selling point and if they fail on that…
@Missyb211: so do you like the thought of pesticides?
@Missyb211: yes they are meant to be washed but that doesn’t make it news or newsworthy. Seriously grow the f up. Drama queen.
How lazy are people?
Just buy regular lettuce and wash it yourself. Washed salad in a bag should still be washed in case of residue of the bleach dilute that they use to wash it.
Better still, Lettuce is so easy to grow in a windowsill, tastier and rewarding.
@Michael Powell: you have a lot of misdirected, unjustified anger there Michael. Maybe cut back on the steriods a little.
@Missyb211: she was looked after by the shop. She came to no harm. Why report it to the journal?
@DaisyMay: we are worse got reading it.
@Billy Connelly: It wasn’t billy preston was it?
Ow nooooo…the justified horror and outrage. A piece of nature inbetween the treated and plastic wrapped pieces of nature. Put beetle in garden, wash salad again if you must, eat said salad and STFU.
@Wodanaz von Mises: I love this comment :-)
@Wodanaz von Mises: should have charged extra for it…
At least the bug was happy, after a wash & a meal. Every little helps!!
@James Brown: “Its protein” told to Brubaker
Excellent journalism to contact the shop for an explanation! I once bought a carrot with some clay on it…where do I send the details to??
@The Second Last Word: I’m shocked! How on earth would clay get on a carrot? Are you OK?
@John Mulligan: I haven’t eaten a carrot since and now avoid the vegetable aisle when shopping!
Big deal. It happens. You got compensated and still went to the media.
Surely the Beetle has an actionable case against Tesco, its supplier and customer, for false imprisonment, causing family breakdown, exposure to harmful plastics and chemicals??
Humans always the needy..
@DeFonz: Rereading the story …Tesco continue to hold this Beetle..
Release this Beetle Tesco Now!
I bought a salad in Lidl a few years ago there was a live snail it it. Didn’t care only he/she had eaten chunks out of almost every leaf in the packet and there was slime all over the bag from the snails trails… went back to Lidl and got a €5 voucher lol. Still never bought salad from them again. Never had an issue with Tesco all the same.
Always check the bags before you buy and ‘washed and ready to eat’ means nothing, always wash it yourself too.
@Clare: I was raised on home grown vegetables. Every bit of lettuce had ahole in it and we didn’t throw stuff out just because it was naturally odd-shaped or sized. The whole point of eating vegetables is that they are natural.
Clarehall is not in Malahide. At all.
@Fabio Dillon: they are nearly 5 miles apart in fact. Clarehall shopping centre is on the Malahide Road, probably where the error came from.
Problem with running a site that is predicated upon churning out as many stories as possible in as short a period of time, and we drive that, journalistic standards slip. I know many commentators complain, but journal management drive this, not those writing the articles.
Before…
1. Remove beetle.
2. Wash lettuce.
3. Eat lettuce.
Now…
1. Take 50 photos of beetle in bag.
2. Upload photos to social media, tagging all news outlets in the hope one will run with the non-story.
3. Keep unopened bag in a safe place until legal advice has been sought.
Would say unbelievable but if this was to happen anywhere I would have guessed Tesco. Their food standards are shocking.
@Toon Army: it is perfectly normal and natural for vegetables to have insects on them. Vegetables are grown in the ground, not manufactured.
@Toon Army? Shocking? I’ve never had a problem with their food standards, what issues have you had?
We really should be growing these foods locally the insanity of globalisation where supplier price and profit at all cost is king.
So many vegetables we can grow in Ireland are coming from South America. Prawns from Thailand.
It’s time to grow our own food – a fundamental and simple skill we’ve been detached from as part of the global dependency system to make us comply.
@Toon Army: I couldn’t agree more, I have had a lot of bad experience with so called fresh food in Tesco and have not shopped there in years, the fact that it was just left in the back of the store shows just how seriously they took the complaint.
@Ranty McCrank: quality of meat is generally very poor for one.
The only ones who should be apologising are the unknown customer who demands confidence in her weekly plastic bag of salad and Cliodhna Russell.
Any more photos of the beetle?
In Malahide! surprised it wasn’t a cricket
@joeheaney: not in Malahide
@joeheaney: Only 4 miles from Malahide, which I suppose is accurate enough around here. Someday perhaps some technology company will invent a way of looking up unfamiliar places online or some such.
I seen a spider in the bath last week..
Reckon it was an ailen beetle, if it was in the rocket.
Out walking in the woods yesterday and came across a beetle. Said to myself “you’re on a mission” before I avoided stepping on it. Now I realise there must have been a “beetle alert” throughout the country to hide as one of them was going to be used in a supermarket war and they would be discredited as a species. Hope Beetle survived ordeal.
Beautiful creature. I wonder where it is now.
Know the place well. Nice area, Malahide, Darndale, Clarehall.
Maybe she missed the bag being labelled ‘Now with added protein’…she’s so ungrateful
Clarehall – Malahide lol
Tesco’s use of ‘The Long And Winding Road’ as the theme song for their home delivery ad campaign is finally explained.
Watch out beetles about
Was it ringo starr or Paul McCartney?
Omg that’s absolutely horrendous news I hope all parties involved are ok
Simple. Wash your salad yourself
very badly handled by Tesco… beetles the head out of me how he got in there
Clare hall shopping centre Is NOT in Malahide, it’s Clarehall, Belmayne even
This shows that the salad does not have any chemicals..beetles would not eat such a salad. But, the true must be better controlled by delivery
Bugger
Waterford Whispers now struggling to find a better headline.
Why the plastic
@Paul: very good point. In 20 years this article will seem very strange. Seeing as the main protein source is likely to come from bugs at some point, then a few leaves in a package that lasts for hundreds of years and someone moaning about the bug will seem mad.
The woman must have little to complain about in life. She didn’t use her name I see. Says a lot. Mortified for her. And getting media involved too. The type that rings the broadcasting authority to complain once a week I’d say too. Get a life!
Liverpudlian perhaps?
Oh well . . As they say in the ad . .“Every little helps.”
Looks a bit like John Lennon
Word on the street is beetle was a Galwegian……from The Bay
Bugs in our greens
Horse meat in our pies
Get on with with it wash your salads before use stop making dramas
Breaking News: Please contact me the the journal……I got an extra bag of fun size malteasers than stated on the treat size packet
Spotted what I assumed was an insect egg in a bag of ‘prepared’ spinach. It was in the stalk. I pull all stalks off now and inspect every inch of every plant and fruit I eat. I actually think I developed a phobia!
Malahide……hahaha, it was bought in the Darndale Opera House.
I bought a bunch of organic bananas from Tesco and there was a spider nest on them with little grey spiders in it, they obviously came from wherever the bananas came from. No way was I carrying that back up to Tesco – was just glad I realised before I got them back to the house!
Well if Tesco Mobile customer care is anything to go by they will probably charge her more and refuse to accept responsibility!
Dreadful company and the rudest rip off merchants I’ve ever, ever dealt with!
I hope she wasn’t a vegetarian!
Malahide…..so funny……..it was bought in the Darndale Ooera House.
Get on with with it wash your salads before use stop making dramas
I will never forget the enormous earwig which ran out of a pre washed bag of mixed salad I bought in the large Sainsbury’s store in Kensington London. It put me right off lunch! I went back to the store to complain and all I was offered was a replacement bag! No thank you!!
Malahide me hoop. In between Darnall and donaghmeade
@Soupy Gargler: There goes the neighbourhood – 5% drop in property values – Green vote in trouble.
“It’s back to butterhead lettuce for me ”
What’s a beetle between friends !
Just for texture
If you shop in Tesco, you deserve it.
@Skimothy:
The plastic wrapper is actually the hazardous part of that episode.
So she’s not looking for money?ya right !
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