Woman's 'rotten' find inside blackberries bought from Coles
A woman has slammed Coles after she said she discovered three maggots inside a packet of newly purchased blackberries.
The mother-of-three, from Ipswich in Queensland, took to the supermarket chain’s Facebook page on Friday to complain about the vulgar discovery.
The woman claims she bought the punnet of Driscoll’s fruit the day prior and was cutting them up to place in a fruit salad for her two youngest children when she discovered the crawling fly larvae.
“As I was cutting the first blackberry I noticed a maggot,” she wrote.
“So I checked all of them and another berry had another one. Another one of the blackberries had mould on the outside and the inside looks rotten.”
After further inspection, the woman said she found a third maggot in another berry.
“I am glad I decided to cut them up because I wouldn’t have discovered this and my children would have eaten it,” she said.
Driscoll’s Australia, a California grower of strawberries and other berries, contacted the mother to apologise.
“Thank you for giving us feedback and we sincerely apologise for your unfortunate experiences with our blackberries. We take these matters very seriously,” the company said before offering to message the woman privately.
Yahoo News Australia has contacted Coles for comment.
It may be safe to consume maggots themselves - and are even considered a potential source of protein - but you could be susceptible to whatever they’ve eaten or been exposed to, such as faeces or rotting flesh, according to Healthline.
Fruit infested with maggots is likely to be rotting and ridden with other potentially harmful bacteria.
“Coles takes the quality of all our products seriously. We have contacted the customer and will follow up with our supplier to investigate the matter,” a Coles spokesperson told Yahoo.
”As always we encourage customers to return any item they’re not 100% happy with to their nearest store for a full refund or replacement.”
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