A SCHOOLBOY’S favourite Greggs pasty proved unpalatable after he bit down to find chunks of wood mixed in with the filling.

Nine-year-old Henry Hardy was enjoying a cheese and onion pasty as part of a family treat when he discovered pieces of pallet wood among the cheesy filling.

 

HORRIBLE: Henry Hardy, nine, said it was "horrible" to find pallet wood in his pasty

The Ingleton Primary School pupil said the hard wood hurt his teeth during the incident at the Barnard Castle store on August 21 and alerted his mum, Julie Dent.

“It hurt my teeth and it was quite horrible,” the Staindrop youngster said.

Mrs Dent, who was also treating her four other children at the time, said she could not believe what she was seeing.

“I think it’s shocking that you find pallet wood in a pasty that a child’s eating. You don’t expect these foreign objects,” she said.

“Henry loves his grub and was sat at the table when he bit down and said ‘mam I can’t eat it, it’s really hard’,” she added. “He could have consumed it."

Mrs Dent, who co-owns Louis Smith Motors, in Staindrop, said she alerted staff to the problem and was reassured the mystery items would be sent off to the company’s food safety team.

However, she said she felt further “annoyed and frustrated” when she received a letter from the company admitting the samples had never reached the team for quality control checks and were “presumed lost in the post” although they believed it was pallet wood from examining the photographs Mrs Dent took.

In the letter, a company representative said they had asked staff to be “extra vigilant” and offered the family £20 as a goodwill gesture.

Mrs Dent said she felt “insulted” by the offer and disappointed that the samples had vanished.

“£20 is an insult and I just think it’s disappointing that the samples have gone missing,” she said. “I think they should be more professional and find out how the pallet wood could get into your cheese and onion pasty.

“How can it go through the manufacturing process and get into the food chain?”

Mrs Dent is still considering whether to take further action but had no plans to return to the store.