Fears over produce from major supermarket after popular cheese was found crawling with maggots

Daily Mail​

10-07-2025

A hungry couple were left feeling sick to their stomachs after buying cheese from a supermarket which was infested with maggots.
Cato and Sean Cooper paid £3 for a wedge of Président French Brie from a Morrisons Daily garage in Taunton West, Somerset, on May 14.
But as Mr Cooper, 54, went to prepare their lunch he discovered maggots wriggling and burrowing into the soft cheese.
In a video filmed by the disgusted couple, more than 16 of the parasitic bugs can be seen writhing around in the creamy yellow mass.
Maggots are the larvae stage of flies, hatching from eggs laid in their hundreds by the insects in rotting materials.
Coming face to face with the tiny grubs also left his partner equally 'disgusted'.
Mrs Cooper, 54, a recruitment firm consultant, immediately binned the cheese before contacting Morrisons' live chat service to inform them of the 'gross find'.
But she was left 'insulted' after they offered her a mere £3 voucher to make up for their shocking ordeal.
Ms Cooper who reached out to the supermarket said they didn't take the incident seriously
Mrs Cooper claims it was clear after a few messages she was talking to a chatbot rather than a human customer service agent, said: 'I feel like they couldn't be bothered to take it seriously.'
Now the couple from have vowed to never but their brie from the supermarket chain again.
Recalling the disgusting find, Ms Cooper said: 'I opened the Brie and thought "what the heck? That is disgusting" I stuck the brie in the bin but kept the wrapping.
'It must've been left out, it can't have been left properly in the fridge. Someone must've left it on the shelf.
'It's gross. I thought we should really let them know that that's not on. We could've easily eaten it.
'It wasn't anything to do with the brand, it was how it was kept outside the fridge.'
A Morrisons spokesperson said: 'We have been in regular contact with the customer to apologise for the delay while our franchise partner carried out its investigation.
'We are now confident this was an isolated incident but have been back in touch with the customer this week to offer them a further gesture of goodwill.'
Président Cheese have been contacted for a comment.
Just last month a mother made her own horrifying discovery when she found maggots crawling in a tin of tuna.
Bethany Bryson, 28, from Edinburgh in Scotland, found the maggots just before she was about to feed her son the tuna for lunch.
The mother-of-one had bought the multipack of John West tinned tuna for £3.98 from Asda's Edinburgh Supercentre store on May 23.
Despite not noticing anything unusual about the cans in the store, when she went to take the top tin off, she was taken aback.
Ms Bryson 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.'
She estimated there were more than 100 maggots crawling inside the tuna—as it seen in shocking footage.
Manufacturer, John West Foods, who apologised and offered her a £10 voucher, suggested the can had been damaged in transit before arriving at the supermarket.
She also called up the Asda's Edinburgh Supercentre store to tell them about what had happened.
Ms Bryson said the staff told her to bring the tuna tins into the store for testing and that they would remove the tins from the shelves.
Armed with two pairs of disposable gloves, she had to fish through her bins to retrieve the tin.
'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,' she said.
The manager offered her a £20 voucher as a gesture of goodwill when she returned to the store, she said.
While Asda's head office apologised for her experience and offered her a £5 voucher, she said their response was unacceptable.