Aldi apologises for 'extremely rare' incident at new Northampton store which left mother-of-two 'shocked'

Supermarket giant Aldi has apologised for an 'extremely rare' incident at a Northampton store which left a mother 'shocked' and fearing for her children's safety.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, was recently shopping with her children at the new Aldi store in Overstone when she bought a bag of salad as part of her big shop.

The mother-of-two took the "ready to eat" mild bag of salad back home and served up a nutritious lunch for herself and her children. However, the mother said what she was about to find was "shocking".

She found a piece of charred wood in her food which she claimed had fallen out of the bag and on to her plate.

She said: "I grabbed a handful for each of the three plates that I fished up for lunch. Thank goodness I discovered it in my plate and they didn’t. Shocking.

"Disappointing isn’t the word and I’m just glad that my children didn’t have this on their plate as [it is] a potential choking hazard," she said.

She got in touch with Aldi demanding an explanation and some sort of compensation.

She said: "I explained that I gave this salad bag to my three-year-old child and one-year-old child as well as eating this myself.

"I have been offered a ridiculously small amount in compensation when finding a piece of wood in my salad bag, well it was actually on my plate when discovered.

"After contacting them about this foreign body Aldi decided that £3.79 would be offered in compensation."

After this newspaper took her complaint to Aldi, the mother said she was later offered £20 compensation.

She said: "Aldi called me and said they would be doing more investigations as to why the wood was in the product. They also offered me £20 in compensation. I said that this was still not the point and was a danger to my children's safety.

"I will be dropping the wood and packaging back to the Overstone branch over the weekend for them to look into this further."

An Aldi spokesperson said: "Whilst extremely rare, this can occasionally occur with products that are grown in natural conditions.

"We’ve apologised to the woman that, on this occasion, our usual high standards were not met, and have asked that the product is returned to her local store so we can investigate fully.”