Whether it's a Saturday night or a rollover Monday, everyone loves a good aul takeaway. We've all heard those outrageous stories about disgusting things found in food and takeaways that make you gag and leave you reaching for that frozen pizza or, occasionally, a salad *hides evidence.* What we didn't realise was the number of complaints made each last year because of food contamination.
In 2016, over 3,200 complaints were made to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, a surge from the previous year. Over 45% more people complained of food poisoning than in 2015 and poor hygiene increased by a third.
According to Food Safety Authority report some of the most disgusting objects found in Irish takeaways included:
- A live insect in a packaged dessert
- A long black hair in garlic sauce
- Human nail in a takeaway meal
- glass in a dessert
- a plastic rope in a takeaway meal
- A cigarette butt in a bag of chips
The investigation team carried out 34 cases where "breaches of food law and food fraud were suspected" and all complaints were investigated by the Authority across Ireland. Complaints from customers also included poor hygiene, "dirty" customer toilets, rats seen on the premises and in one case, a staff member sneezed into their hands and prepared a sandwich without washing their hands.
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It wasn't just disgusting items found in food that concerned the Authority - the origin and misleading sale of food was also worrying. Cases included an illegal description and sale of wine as Prosecco, misleading sales of craft beer, the illegal slaughter of meat, stolen animals entering the food chain, sales of meat on social media from unregistered sources and "mislabelling of meat and poultry".
Gross.
