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Razor-sharp knife found in supermarket bread
Last updated at 00:07am on 21.09.06
Free steak knife: Derek Ball with the sliced loaf
A couple who bought a loaf of bread from Tescos found a razor-sharp knife blade buried in it. Derek Ball and Barbara Northfield were horrified to discover the eight-inch blade.
They spotted the knife after buying the 29p Value Brown Loaf from their local superstore. Ms Northfield, of Godmanchester, near Huntingdon, Cambs, said: "We couldn't believe our eyes. I wanted to take four or five slices out and put the rest in the freezer.
"I took the top of the packet with scissors and took the slices out. I saw there were holes in the bread and I thought that's strange, then I looked at the loaf and saw this black thing. I called Derek in and he said: 'Oh my God, somebody's got a grudge'.
"I couldn't believe it." She added: "It really upset me. You don't expect to find a knife when you buy a simple loaf of bread. I had to sit down and have a cup of coffee to calm down.
"You keep reading about amnesties and we got a huge knife in our loaf of bread. It doesn't bear thinking about." Mr Ball, who has a six-year-old granddaughter, India, said: "This is absolutely unacceptable. A young child like India could have got hold of this knife.
"I work on CCTV operations for the district council and my job is to protect people from danger, including knives, so it is ironic that we find one in our shopping. "Somebody has a knife missing and we've got it - the knife have cost more than the bread."
A Tesco spokesman said: "We are very sorry that inconvenience and distress have been caused to these customers and we are investigating with Allied Bakeries our supplier.
"It is impossible to say how the knife got into the bread. These investigations can take time. We will keep the customers informed. An Allied Bakeries spokesman said: "We were informed that there was a complaint about an own value label brown loaf.
"We contacted the consumer and asked for the product so it could be analysed. However, the customer decided to take the loaf to the Environmental Health Office directly.
"The subsequent environmental health report confirmed that Allied Bakeries had followed its manufacturing procedures correctly and that the contamination did not happen during the production or packaging of the loaf."
