Hundreds Of Insects Found Infesting Store-Bought Broccoli
Hundreds Of Insects Found Infesting Store-Bought Broccoli
The threat of insect pest infestations to our homes is bad enough without having to worry about encountering creepy-crawlies in private businesses. Unfortunately, many insect infestations that are found within private businesses do occur where food is served, produced or processed. For example, it is not uncommon for restaurants to be caught with insect pest infestations. This is an unfortunate fact of life for people who love to eat out, as many restaurants have experienced at least a few insect pest-related issues. Of course, nobody wants to find insects at the grocery store either. Even worse than finding insects in a grocery store is finding them within the food that you bought from a grocery store. As you can imagine, insects are often transported from crop environments into grocery stores. Boxes of vegetables are sometimes found with large non-native insects or spiders once they arrive at a grocery store for unpacking. Normally, all spiders and insects are removed from produce before it finds its way into the homes of consumers. Sadly, this was not the case for one woman who unknowingly bought insect infested broccoli in order to feed her baby.
Thirty two year old Sheetal Sawant had just ordered some broccoli and other groceries from an online shopping vendor. After Sawant prepared the broccoli for her baby daughter to eat, she noticed that it was covered in insects. Sawant was shredding the vegetables in a blender when she first noticed the insect presence. According to Sawant, “At first I noticed a few bugs on the broccoli and on the kitchen counter, so I thought I’d just wash the broccoli and that would be enough”. Unfortunately this was not enough, as the bug presence persisted, and actually seemed to grow somehow. Sawant posted pics of the insect-infested broccoli to social media, and she contacted the food manufacturer, Tesco, in order to get a refund. Tesco agreed to issue a refund for the insect-riddled broccoli.
Have you ever found a spider or an insect while near a produce table within a grocery store?
