Woman makes disturbing discovery in pasta sauce bought at Woolworths
A woman made a disturbing discovery lurking in her pasta sauce halfway through cooking and Woolworths is “very concerned”.
The woman, who said the purchased the jar from Revesby in Sydney’s south west, shared a photo of pasta sauce to the Woolworths Facebook page.
The photo shows what appears to be a large maggot near the top of the glass container.
In the photo attached to the post, the jar appears to be half used, and the woman explained in the comments she didn’t see the bug until she added much of it to her cooking.
“I actually used the jar before noticing,” she said. “Had to throw the whole pot of food out, such a waste.”
Woolworths responded to the woman’s post, asking the woman to give them the full product details - name, used-by date, batch number and her own contact number.
“We’re very concerned about this,” Woolworths replied. “And take incidents like this very seriously.”
When approached for comment a Woolworths spokesperson referred Yahoo News Australia to the manufacturer of the Raguletto pasta sauce.
“If a customer has a concern with a product, we encourage them to bring it back to store or contact us on 1300 767 969 so we can address it,” the Woolworths spokesperson said.
Simplot Australia is the manufacturer of Raguletto. Brands such as Birds Eye and Leggo’s are also under the Simplot umbrella.
Simplot Australia was made aware of the incident on Thursday, a spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia.
“Our internal checks confirmed the original response by Woolworths that the insect is most likely a pantry moth larvae,” they said.
“The larvae generally come from dry products and we recommend consumers check any dry products in their pantry to ensure they are also free of contamination. Pantry moths often lay eggs under the outside rim of containers lids.”
The company spokesperson said: “Simplot holds itself to the highest quality and food safety standards, by complying to internationally accredited practices”.
During production the pasta sauce product is heat treated to create a vacuum seal which would make it almost impossible for a live larvae to survive, the company said.
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