[imagesource:facebook/sasko]

A Durban woman got the shock of her life recently after discovering a rat in a loaf of bread.

On Facebook, Nombulelo Mkumla shared her horrific experience of finding the dead rodent in a loaf of Sasko brown bread. According to another consumer, this is not the first time that something like this has happened with the same brand.

She wrote: “I recently bought bread from Spar (Sasko bread) on August 27th. The same day, I made toast after work and ate the bread. The following day, after work, I did the same thing.

“Then, on the morning of August 31st, I took the bread out of the fridge to make toast and noticed something disgusting and scary. I took a picture and sent it to my friends, and one of them said, ‘Yi mpuku leyo tshomi’ (‘That’s a rat friend’).

Cue all our stomachs heaving at the thought:

Mkumla said she was in denial and tried to think about what else it could be, but said the rat scenario made sense – “it’s possible the rat got into the bread at the factory, and no one noticed”.

Having nearly chomped down on sliced rat, she promptly went to Avonmore Spar in Durban, where she brought the bread, who advised her to lay a complaint with their supplier directly. She sent proof of the contamination to Pioneer Foods on Saturday, August 31st and someone responded by email with a filled-out form stating that the bread had mould.

“Why would I make a fuss over mould? I responded and gave my description of the complaint.”

She heard nothing until someone from Sasko called her and tried to shove the whole ordeal under the rug:

“It shouldn’t have happened, but you must understand that it gets hot where we bake our products, so things like this are bound to happen,” the customer service agent said.

“Yes, I admit that your bread had a mouse or rat. We are putting measures in place to prevent this from happening again. Don’t worry; it won’t affect you health-wise’,” she added.

What a joke. Of course, eating a dead animal is a massive problem, not to mention the potential diseases the thing could have been carrying as well. Mkumla’s reaction of anger was appropriate given this lousy handling of the situation.

“Instead of saying sorry, they told me to understand that it gets hot where they bake, and that’s why there was a rat in my bread! Are you a professional doctor? I doubt I will ever eat Sasko products again. This experience has been traumatic and disgusting,” she added.

This is hard to look at let alone having it in your home and some in your mouth/stomach.

Since the time of publication, the post garnered over 4,000 shares and over 21,000 comments. People in the comments were livid over the incident, with many agreeing this is unacceptable.

“Not even a sorry can fix this,” someone said, while someone else mentioned that they had experienced something similar, finding the remnants of a rodent in their bread back in 2020.

I experienced the same thing with @SaskoSA bread in 2020 and tweeted about it no one said anything even sasko didn’t respond…so we have been eating rats this whole time😭😭it’s time to boycott sasko…this is bad💔😭 pic.twitter.com/xh1OJVKQgx

— NAKOODOG 🐶 🕒 (@GhettoSoldeir) September 10, 2024

Cornel Vermeulen, the General manager of bakeries at PepsiCo South Africa, said that they are aware of an isolated incident in KZN where a consumer purchased a loaf of SASKO Low GI Seeded Whole Wheat Brown bread that did not meet the stringent quality standards we set out for our products.

“The consumer returned the loaf of bread to the store after she discovered that it had been contaminated by a foreign object (which was later confirmed to be a rodent).”

Vermeulen said as part of their commitment to maintaining the highest standards of food safety they investigated all the factory retention samples, and records covering the few days around the sample batch in question, and found no discrepancies, noting that they are thus “confident that this was an isolated incident”

“We want to assure our consumers that we immediately launched a thorough investigation of the complaint.

“We are committed to providing safe, high-quality food products. We appreciate the understanding and support of our consumers during this time,” he concluded.

Eish, but I don’t know if anyone is going to forget this sliced Sasko bread rat anytime soon.

[source:iol]