A Chester man was left sickened after finding what he claims was a ‘tooth’ in his packet of wine gums.
Leigh McClelland from Saughall said he may never eat a wine gum again after finding the strange object ‘just sitting at the bottom’ of the packet he bought from Sainsbury’s on Watergate Street on June 7.
Repulsed, Leigh, who works as a gas engineer and as head doorman at The Commercial Hotel, immediately contacted manufacturers Maynards via Twitter and after a few days, managed to speak to someone on the phone who said they would send Leigh a ‘baggy’ in the post so he could send the packet back to them for further investigation.
But Leigh said he found it ‘shocking’ how he had not received an apology from the company, even though he could have ‘choked to death’.
“I’ve bought hundreds if not thousands and thousands of wine gum packets in my lifetime and just feel that the level of customer service I’ve had is shocking. You would expect someone to want to get straight to the bottom of it, make sure I’m alright - after all I could have choked to death -offer their sincere apologies and try to rebuild my confidence in Maynards again rather than just leave me chasing them and feeling like they just are not bothered in the slightest.
'Shocking'
“I found the object on June 7 and couldn’t get hold of anybody or anyway of contacting Maynards over a phone, could not DM them as they have to follow you to be able to, so eventually had to resort to Twitter.”
He explained: “I felt sick to the stomach and horrified when I first noticed something at the bottom of the packet and the sickness felt a lot worse when I inspected the object and realised what it could potentially be.
“I couldn’t stop wrenching at the thought and even now I don’t know if I could ever eat another wine gum in my life, just the thought turns my stomach again and it’s been over a month!”
A spokesperson for Mondelez International, who represent Maynards, told The Chronicle: “This sounds very unpleasant for Mr McClelland and we have sent him a pre-paid envelope so that he can send the product back to us. Once it’s returned, we will carry out an investigation to see how this could have occurred.
“From the pictures we’ve seen this looks like a build-up of starch, which is used during the manufacturing process to help us mould the sweets into the different shapes.”
