December 22nd 2023.
Phil Hall had a lunch break he'll never forget. While enjoying a coronation chicken sandwich he had made at home that morning, he bit into something hard and crunchy - only to discover it was a live locust from a salad bag purchased from Sainsbury’s in Darlington four days earlier.
“I thought to myself, coronation chicken shouldn’t be that hard and crunchy, and when I took it out of my mouth, I saw it was a great big locust,” said Phil, from Hurworth-on-Tees, County Durham. “It was definitely still alive because it was twitching, and its head was moving. I shouted to the lads ‘Come and have a look at what I’ve just nearly eaten’ and they couldn’t believe their eyes.”
Phil's wife Karen had bought the mixed salad from the store - and the locust had survived despite sitting in the couple’s fridge the whole time. “It was camouflaged in amongst the salad leaves, so I just didn’t see it when I put a handful in as part of the coronation chicken sandwich,” Phil said.
The incident left Phil feeling a bit sick, and he tested positive for Covid when he got home from work after feeling unwell later in the day. “A locust sandwich and Covid - I’ve definitely had better days,” he said.
Phil is now asking for an investigation into the locust incident and for Sainsbury’s to make a ‘meaningful donation’ to a food bank in Darlington as a goodwill gesture. He’s also been put off coronation chicken “for life”, and said he’ll be going through any salad he has in future with a fine-tooth comb.
Sainsbury’s head office said the product came from a manufacturer called G’s, adding that it isn’t made by Sainsbury’s and is available in other supermarkets. G’s, which is one of Europe’s leading fresh produce companies, has been contacted for a comment.
In the meantime, the locust will be sent to Sainsbury’s Product Quality Team for further examination, and the store manager of the Darlington store said a donation would be made to a local food bank as requested.
It’s not the first time a Sainsbury’s shopper has encountered a locust. In April, 2018, Sainsbury’s apologised to a man in Belfast after he found a locust in one of the supermarket’s ready-made salads - a discovery that left him feeling just as shocked and disgusted as Phil Hall was.
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