A couple were shocked to find hundreds of bugs - some of them alive and crawling around - in packets of supermarket beans.

Mulgrave Road man Ade Oyewuni first knew about the bugs in his beans when he heard his wife Bunmi scream as she prepared their dinner last week.

Mrs Oyewumi picked up a packet of Island Sun Nigerian Brown Beans, bought from Tesco in September, only to see tiny beetles all over the inside of the bag.

Your Local Guardian:

Mr Oyewumi with the bags of beans

Mr Oyewumi, 48, said: "She just let out this scream. I went through to see what had happened and the packet was just crawling with these black insects - they had eaten the beans.

"I bought four packets and I went to check them and they're all the same - they are crawling all over them, they're still alive because they've been eating the beans.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Mr Oyewumi ordered the beans in an online shop from Tesco - four 500g packets at 99p each - on September 29. After seeing the critters in the bags he contacted Tesco.

He added: "They told me it's nothing to do with them as it's not their name on the product and said I will have to locate a Tesco store to bring them back to so they can take them off me.

"But my worry is that they could have been supplying these all over the neighbourhood, all over the area and we could have an infestation of these things in Sutton - we can't even tell what they are.

"I called back to tell them they needed to do more and they just said they will send me a £5 voucher as good will.

"I said 'I don't want the voucher, I want to know what you're doing to get rid of these things - they should be withdrawn from sale and investigated."

Your Local Guardian:

The bugs are tiny

A spokesman for Tesco said: "We set ourselves very high standards for the safety and quality of our food.

"We have spoken to the customer and urged him to return the product to store so we can carry out an investigation with the supplier."   

Sutton Council's trading standards department has been made aware of the incident.


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