W2C-005 Belfast Telegraph 4-3.txt
Dunnes get fine for beetle infested soup

Dunnes Stores has been fined £ 100 after 14 beetles and 24 larvae were found in a packet of dried soup being eaten by a Kilkeel woman.

The firm was also ordered to pay £ 110 costs at Newry Magistrate's Court yesterday.

Strange

Dunnes Stores was charged with selling Knorr Bavarian dried soup not of quality demanded, at its shop in Greencastle Street, Kilkeel, to Mrs Lorraine Trainor of Fearon Park, Kilkeel, last January.

Rory McShane, for Newry and Mourne Council, said Mrs Trainor's daughter noticed something rather strange about it when she started to eat the soup.

She discovered the material was rotten and that it was contaminated.

The public analyst found it contained 14 beetles, 24 larvae and nine pupal cases, also that it had the characteristics of the Australian beetle, which attacts and infects dried food products.

There was a small hole about one-and-a-half millimetres wide in the packet, through which the initial infestation could have arisen.

Counsel for Dunnes, which pleaded guilty to the charge, said this could not have occurred in the store at Kilkeel. It seemed certain it happened at the time of manufacture.

Regional Magistrate Gerry Harty agreed that the firm had a good record and said it bought vast quantities for distribution to its various stores.
