By Bruce Robbins

ASDA YESTERDAY issued an apology to a young Dundee mother who found a beetle tumbling out of a jar of its pasta sauce.

Deborah Stewart (28) told The Courier of her “horror” at the unappetising find which ended up in her pot of pasta.

The mother-of-two was preparing a meal in her Dudhope Court home on Wednesday when her attention was drawn to something odd-coloured in the sauce.

She said, “When I poured the sauce into the pan I noticed the bluey-green beetle.

“It was absolutely disgusting. If one of us was to have eaten it we would have crunched it.

“It is completely horrible to think about it.

“I phoned ASDA to tell them what happened but they just said it was probably a one-off.

“I don’t think that is good enough. If a beetle can get into it without being sieved out who knows what else could get through?

“They should at least send it away for analysis to see how it happened.”

Unhappy at the Milton of Craigie store’s response to her complaint, Deborah contacted The Courier to see if something could be done about the situation.

The store’s general manager, Stephen Gallagher, stressed that all customer complaints and issues of contamination are taken “very seriously.”

He added, “We’d like to apologise to this customer for any distress caused.

“We need to get a clearer understanding of how this problem has occurred.

“We are therefore keen to contact the customer to arrange collection of the jar of sauce so that we can investigate further and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Last night, however, the offending beetle was locked away in the jar inside Deborah’s freezer awaiting an inspection by trading standards officers.