'Harmless to eat' worm found in Tesco sandwich

A WORM found inside a four-year-old boy's supermarket sandwich was harmless to eat, according to experts. Wayne Scott bought the tuna sandwich for his stepson Luke from Tesco in Hatfield. The youngster was just about to eat it when the wiggler was spotted

A WORM found inside a four-year-old boy's supermarket sandwich was harmless to eat, according to experts.

Wayne Scott bought the tuna sandwich for his stepson Luke from Tesco in Hatfield. The youngster was just about to eat it when the wiggler was spotted.

The 32-year-old financial controller told a national newspaper: "Perhaps it's going to be a new sandwich filling, tuna and worm.

"They really should amend their packaging to say this sandwich may contain bones and worm.

"Either that, or they should give you a sick-bag when you buy the sandwich."

He took the sandwich to Welwyn Hatfield Council and its environmental health team analysed it.

A spokeswoman said: "Following a visual examination it would appear the tuna contained a very small object which could have been a part of the fish, such as nervous tissue or a larger blood vessel.

"On occasions fish, like many other animals, contain parasitic worms which once heated to normal cooking temperatures are completely harmless to humans.

"Canned tuna has been heated to temperatures in excess of regular cooking temperatures, so whatever the foreign object consisted of there would have been no harm to human health.

"On this basis the customer was advised the environmental health department would not be taking any further action."

A Tesco spokesman said: "We apologised to the customer for what must have been a very distressing find in his son's sandwich.

"This was fully investigated by environmental health and was found to be a cod worm which is common in many species of fish.

"Although extremely unpleasant, it would be harmless if eaten and the customer was offered a gesture of goodwill by way of apology.