Butt in salad leaves customer fuming

The butt that Graeme Harris found in his Greek salad, bought from Tamatea Pak'n Save.

Retail giant Foodstuffs has apologised after a customer found a cigarette butt in his pre-packed bag of salad.

Napier man Graeme Harris was less than impressed when he uncovered the cigarette butt in the Greek salad he bought from Pak'n Save Tamatea at the weekend. In earlier reports, Mr Harris said the discovery left him feeling "disgusted and a little bit sick".

He unsuspectingly served the smoky salad to his dinner guests.

"We had some friends over on the Sunday and ate about half of it, and then Monday night thought we'd finish it off with some noodles, and my wife discovered a cigarette butt in it," he said.

No one in the Harris household smokes and Mr Harris questioned whether the supplier's procedures were up to scratch.

"Considering the implications of finding something like that, in an end product that's supposed to be checked and that they stated was washed three times and checked at every stage, there's got to be something wrong there."

Mr Harris said he contacted Pam's and was initially offered a $15 voucher. "When I said that was still not good enough, they upped it to $50."

He declined the offer.

Mr Harris said he would not buy Pam's salad again.

A Foodstuffs spokeswoman said the company "sincerely apologised to our customer for any upset caused".

She said Foodstuffs had been in contact with the customer regarding the issue and took any incidence of foreign matter in its products extremely seriously.

"In addition, our supplier has a risk-management plan in place to minimise the risk of this occurring."

"A full investigation with the supplier has commenced and they are currently working through this process," she said.