Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

I was shocked on opening a new a new container of Aunt Bessies Classic Gravy Granules to find something moving inside, so I very quickly shut the lid. I called my husband and he confirmed it was a live grub crawling on top of the granules.
I phoned Aunt Bessies Customer Sevices immediately as I was concerned that the contaminated product was a health risk. Customer Services were very dismissive. I told them we are in North Cyprus and we bought the product in a supermarket here, Aunt Bessies first said it was the importer who was at fault, then they said it was the shop fault, as they do not expert here it is not their problem. I told them that as the box was undamaged and the seal was still in place it could only have got in during their manufacturing process. They then said that they would investigate, I gave them my phone number, but 3 days later they have not contacted me.
The batch number is;
Best Before Dec 2017. 6161 10:57. G1SO.
I don’t know what the insect grub is, or if it got in before or after the container was filled, but if it was in the batch of the gravy granules then there is a potential health hazard from that batch. Please check any with that code carefully before using.
I am only pleased that I spotted it before using the product, I am not pleased that Aunt Bessies do not seem to take the complaint more seriously.

If it's sealed how can a grub be alive ,It will need water and air?.

I think you may be wrong Thickey. I bought some Uncle Bens par boiled brown rice. On opening the packet, bought a few days before (and easily within the best before date) there were at least 6 live caterpillars (moth larvae) inside. Escalation of this problem to Uncle Bens (a Mars product) brought no response.

Will not be buying their products again.

Nothing wrong with protein and rice.Helps cut down on the carbs .

no no no.

if you would check the (plastic) sealing completely (with a microscope), you most probably would find a small puncture somewhere.
eg, from an insect, which has "injected" some eggs through the sealing into the rice, wheat, whatever.
some of them can do this even through quite tough materials and-or find smallest gaps in lids..
or some small ones just eat their way through and make way for some bigger ones...

btw, no product is completely dry (in most ways is the different way round... as water is cheap), most products are not delivered in a "vacuum" and many plastics are not completely air tight.

the problem are long delivery times and the storage at (usually) too high temperatures for too long (low sales... who buys uncle Sams rice?)

I brought a box of beef Oxo cubes back from Tesco in the UK last year ago when they were unavailable here for a while. Early this summer I noticed tiny beetle things in the cupboard, and upon closer inspection there were little holes in the foil wrappers of the cubes and the box was full of the little beetle things. They had failed to get into the opened gravy granule containers in the same cupboard, and fortunately there were only tins in there otherwise. Did they arrive in larvae form in the Oxo cubes? Who knows. I think they did. I examined all the cubes closely, and I put any with completely hole free foil into a tupperware box. A couple of weeks later there were holes in the foil of some of them and the tupperware was crawling with the tiny beetles.

Fortunately, because of my reduced visual capacity, I eat much more protein than the rest of you. Therefore I am cheaper to keep - lol. My reduced hearing actually helps with this diet as well - probably why the the wife won't let me buy a hearing aid!!! Bags of flour are the best things to watch by the way, just buy a new one, put it inside a Tupperware type container and wait, soon you will have your very own home grown zoo.

Had this with Ryvita (paper package). Sadly not noticed until after the first bite

I had an infestation of these little monsters a couple of years ago. They are a devil to get rid of. The ones I had were flour mites I think, but apparently they can arrive in pasta, or rice or other types of grain. Took ages to get rid after googling lots of info......finally did get rid of them and now keep everything....flour, rice, pasta, soups....and I mean everything, stock cubes as well.......in good quality tupperware type boxes....anything in packets, flour, rice, etc etc...I keep in the fridge. Am free of them now, although we did buy one of the 20 kilo bags of cat food, in a paper sack, not plastic......and that was absolutely infested......they are vile little creatures. Apparently, the females can lay hundreds of eggs in the crevices of your kitchen cupboards....you dont see them til one day you open the cupboard and little black bugs everywhere. The original lot that we had came courtesy of a pack of cannelloni pasta from Lidl......

There was some correspondence on here (I think!) a while back Someone bought Riveta and found a load of maggots. Riveta customer services actually came on the thread and apologised and offered compensation as well as an assurance about packaging - I remember it particularly because I was impressed by their customer relations. However I think it emerged during the thread that embro insects can be undetectable in natural products such as flour and cereals only to emerge months later and eat their way out of packets! No doubt our hot damp climate encourages this progress. I tend to decant things into glass containers so at least if I get a bad packet the contagion is contained thoogh I try not to think about what might be lurking in some of my breakfast cereals.

I tried to "search" for the thread but came up blank on Riveta and crrispbreads! Biscuits brough up doggy threads! I dont seem to be having much luck withthe search facility.

My Grandfather used to say "Everyone has to eat some dirt in their lives" but personally I prefer my protein in more conventional forms!

All these little critters in the food are wheevils, you will find them in all types of food here, even currypowder & chilly powder..
You can eather throw away the item or if it is a powder ie flour yoy can seive the flour, weavils are not harmful to humans.
In the 1700 s most of the food on the sailing ships had them in.
If you use a lot of flour you could keep it in the fridge, this stops them hatching as the eggs are already in the food when you buy it.

Ragged Robin wrote:...I tried to "search" for the thread but came up blank on Riveta (sic) and crrispbreads (sic)! Biscuits brough (sic) up doggy threads! I dont (sic) seem to be having much luck withthe (sic) search facility....

SPELLING!!

The product is called Ryvita.

If you spell the search term wrong, don't be surprised if the machine can't find it...

Hi Ragged Robin,

"There was some correspondence on here (I think!) a while back Someone bought Riveta and found a load of maggots. Riveta customer services actually came on the thread and apologised and offered compensation as well as an assurance about packaging"

From 22/11/2011 - Post 32...

"Really sorry to hear about your experience with our Muesli Crunch Crispbread. So that we can investigate please could you email us at info@ryvita.com
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards
Ryvita Care Team"

From... http://www.cyprus44.com/forums/79424.asp

Navek

Thank you Navek.. That was kind and helpful

The best way to make sure is to put flour and anything like it in the freezer for 48 hrs, it kills everything..
porridge curry powder flour pasta anything..it works.

My visiting mother in law once ended up unconscious in the A and E of my local hospital as a large wasp escaped from a packet of rice that she had opened and it flew up her nose. It never bit her though - I was far too quick with the frying pan !

Everything edible needs to be in a tightly sealed container here to keep out crawlies.
A tip for keeping flour weevil free - add 3or 4 bay leaves to the container. It does work and does not taint the flour.

They are not flour weevils, it was definitely like a caterpillar larvae, I think Joe Soap was right when he said it moth larvae. We keep all flour and rice products in sealed containers. The point I was trying to make was this box had never been opened and was not damaged in any way, so it must have got in at the factory. Please check any that you have with the same batch code.

This is a very common occurrence the Lavre are so small they will crawl through a threaded top. Once you get infested they can be an absolute B------d to get rid of, They will infest all dry food and spices, They are most likely Indian Meal Moth. Have you seen any tiny brown striped moths flying around.

I don't know why they are called Indian Meal Moth. But they do very often arrive pre. in sealed spice and herb packages.

Must be something about gravy granules this time of year............

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... mical.html

Keith you are such a Teacher but thank you for our lessons.

Also hilltop I have been trying to flick that bug off the screen like an idiot, very funny!

Spiceisnice wrote:Keith you are such a Teacher but thank you for our lessons.

Also hilltop I have been trying to flick that bug off the screen like an idiot, very funny!