'Maggots burst from tin of tuna I was about to feed my baby - I can never eat touch it again'

Edinburgh Live

05-06-2025

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A mum has vowed never to eat tuna again after claiming to discover 'more than 100 maggots' crawling in her tot's John West tuna bought in Asda. Bethany Bryson had nipped to Asda's Edinburgh Supercentre store on May 23 to grab a few essentials and bought a multipack of John West tinned tuna for £3.98.
The mum-of-one had intended to make her son a tuna and sweetcorn baguette for lunch and did not notice anything unusual about the cans in the store. When the 28-year-old returned home, she put her one-year-old son Hudson Gray down for a nap while she began to unpack her shopping.
Bethany, who works in customer service at another supermarket, said that when she went to take the top tin of tuna off of the stack of three maggots 'flew' at her. Stomach-churning footage shows the maggots crawling inside the tuna can in Bethany's kitchen and she said she thought there were more than 100.
The experience has traumatised her so much that she was unable to eat that day and has vowed never to eat tuna again. John West Foods apologised and suggested that the can had been damaged in transit prior to arriving at the supermarket. They are working with suppliers to ensure it does not happen again.
(Image: Kennedy News and Media)
Bethany, from Edinburgh, said: "This is going to sound like I'm exaggerating but maggots literally flew at me. I was in shock and disbelief. You know when your skin starts to crawl?
"I hadn't even opened the actual tin itself. The tin was open with all those maggots floating about. I was sick. I didn't eat that whole day. I'm never going to touch tuna again. I wanted to jump in a shower with bleach because I felt disgusting.
"The smell was something unholy. That was something else. Tuna doesn't smell nice at the best of times but this didn't even smell like off fish or anything like that. I didn't know what it smelled like. It was potent. It was disgusting.
"I had to bin raid to get the tins out. Luckily I have disposable gloves, I had two layers of them on. Two Ziploc bags and a nappy bag went into containing those tins."
After taking the maggots outside, she thoroughly cleaned her kitchen to make sure she had got rid of the creepy crawlies before contacting Asda's customer service team. While she was waiting to hear back from them, Bethany also contacted John West, who apologised for her experience and offered her a £10 voucher as a gesture of goodwill.
On the same day Bethany called Asda's Edinburgh Supercentre store to inform them about what had happened. She said staff told her they would remove the tins from the shelves and asked her to bring the tuna tins into the store for testing.
Armed with two pairs of disposable gloves, Bethany said she had to fish through her bins to retrieve the tins and put them in two Ziploc bags and a nappy bag in order to bring them back to the store. She said when she returned to the store, the manager offered her a £20 voucher as a gesture of goodwill.
Bethany said she heard back from Asda's head office and they apologised for her experience and offered her a £5 voucher. However, she said their response made her feel 'heated' and she was not satisfied with Asda's response.
Bethany said: "I was heated when I got that response and I replied back saying, '£5 when I was about to feed this to my one-year-old son, that's not acceptable.' I was like, 'I do not want my little boy getting sick from that' because he obviously roams about the floor.
"He's walking but he does crawl about the kitchen sometimes so the last thing I want is remnants of maggots being on the floor for him to get unwell. I was actually horrified because if those maggots hadn't been fully developed into the size they were and I hadn't noticed they were in the tin I could have fed that to my son and that just makes me feel sick, it's horrible."
A John West spokesperson said: "At John West, the safety of our consumers and the quality of our products are our highest priorities and we take this incident extremely seriously. No living animal could have survived the high-temperature sterilisation used in our production process.
"Based on the information currently available, it appears the can was damaged after packaging and during transit within the supply chain. This damage compromised the seal and allowed environmental contamination, ultimately leading to spoilage.
"While this appears to be an isolated incident, John West is working closely with logistics partners to ensure that product is being handled with care and that such an issue does not occur again. We are deeply sorry for the distress caused to the customer who purchased this product. We sincerely apologise for her experience and fully understand the concern and upset this has caused her and her family.
"We remain fully committed to upholding the trust that consumers place in us and will do everything possible to make this right."
An Asda spokesperson said they had not received any similar complaints and as soon the store became aware they removed all products with the same batch code from their shelves.
The Asda spokesperson said: "We've since contacted Bethany to apologise for her experience and offered a gesture of goodwill. This product was supplied by a branded partner who have confirmed it was damaged in transit through the supply chain."