A little girl had a lucky escape when a rusty nail was spotted inside a slice of birthday cake she was about to eat.
The horrified family of five-year-old Olivia Watson said the nail could have punctured her throat.
Kelly Winstanley and her family were about to tuck into the Co-op’s own brand “Shooting Star Cake” after purchasing it from their local store in Kirriemuir.
But she claims the celebration for her partner James Baxter’s birthday turned sour after his five-year-old niece, Olivia, almost tucked into a slice containing a nail measuring 1.5ins.
Kelly said: “We were just serving the cake up and my sister-in-law, Kirsty, was about to give a slice to Olivia and it’s lucky she clocked it.
“There was this rusty nail and it was about one-and-a-half-inches long. If Kirsty hadn’t seen it, Olivia could have eaten it.
“It was in the middle of the cake but thankfully the way it was sliced it was spotted just before serving.”
The family said there was no damage to the cake box when they bought it, so it was unclear if it got in there while it was being baked.
To make matters worse, Kelly believes the supermarket could have shown more concern and urgency after the family got in touch with the firm.
She added: “My brother-in-law Kyle contacted Co-Op via Twitter to express his concerns about what happened.
“There was no apology as such, they just asked for the product details and they would ask the supplier to investigate it and would credit our account.
“It was all a bit inhumane the way they dealt with the situation. A number of people had already began eating the cake but thankfully no one seems to have suffered any ill effects from it.”
“If any of kids had consumed that nail it could have easily punctured their oesophagus.
“It’s the last thing you’d expect to find. It looks too small to have fallen off a piece of machinery into the mixture so we don’t know if it has been human error.
“Regardless of what’s happened the company could have dealt with this in a better manner. They said they will add a gesture as a way of an apology, but it could have seriously injured a child.”
A Co-op spokesperson said: “The health and safety of our customers is our top priority and we apologise that on this occasion this product has fallen short of our high standards.
“We immediately started an investigation with our supplier and have resolved the matter directly with the customer.”
