Jersey mum blasts 'danger' drumstick

Thursday 15 June 2017

CI Co-op have assured islanders that finding foreign objects in their food is "very rare" after a Jersey mum was horrified to find plastic in the batter of a chicken drumstick she had intended to feed her children.

Ami-Jane Ball had been preparing a fast food-style dinner for her two youngsters, but had a lucky escape before cooking when she noticed fragments of bright green plastic penetrating the coating of the Co-op chicken.

Ms Ball immediately took to a popular Facebook community to share her concerns over the contaminated product (pictured), which she had purchased from Grand Marché.

Accompanied with sick face emojis, she wrote: “Thought we'd save money and do KFC style dinner at home. Massive bit of green plastic in the coating!! I'm so cross as I have 2 young children. Not the first time this has happened with Co-Op branded food!!”

Her post attracted comments from dozens of dismayed islanders – one of whom described the contamination as “appalling.”

Pictured: The drumsticks purchased from the Coop with the green pieces of plastic magnified.

Another said that it was, “…unacceptable this plastic is in a food product”, with another adding: “There should be food inspectors going around checking supermarkets [sic] products.”

One simply commented: “Eeewwww.”

But the issue was swiftly resolved. Ms Ball told Express that she returned the product to Grand Marché and was awarded a double refund and £7 of meat.

Despite the positive outcome, she said that it would cause her to think twice in future: “I'm happy [with how Co-op handled the situation], but I hope they take measures to ensure this doesn't happen again. I will continue to shop there but will avoid products of this kind.”

Following the ordeal, Co-op's Chief Operations Officer Mark Cox assured islanders that, “…foreign objects in packaged food are very very rare.”

“Food safety is of paramount importance to us so we’d clearly like to investigate it. We have taken some precautions, and checked other packaging of the same product and have not identified any other issues.”

In future, he urged those with similar issues to return the packaging to the branch from which they had bought the affected product. 

“That packaging contains a lot of information like references to where it’s produced, so ideally we’d like to get that back so we can follow it up with the supplier.”