A Tesco customer has expressed his horror at finding a piece of hard rope in a pack of soft bread rolls.

%image(14678737, type="article-full", alt="Mr Smith found a piece of "braided rope" poking out of a bread roll he bought from Tesco. Photo: Sydney Smith")

Sydney Smith, 59, from Briston bought a pack of Tesco soft baps from the Harford Bridge store last week.

Upon opening the packet he noticed a blue substance on the side of one of the rolls, which he initially mistook for mould or food colouring.

When he investigated further, however, Mr Smith was 'shocked' to find the colour poking out of the bread roll was actually a piece of braided rope 'about the thickness of a little finger'.

Mr Smith said: 'To my horror and surprise in what was meant to be a soft bread roll was a hard bit of rope that went quite deep into the bread.

%image(14678738, type="article-full", alt="Mr Smith found a piece of "braided rope" poking out of a bread roll he bought from Tesco. Photo: Sydney Smith")

'If I hadn't looked before eating it could have had dire consequences, and I thought for a child or someone who is visually impaired it could have even been fatal.

'I didn't have any other bread in the house so my tea went up the spout.

'It's put me off bread rolls for a while.'

Mr Smith said he contacted Tesco but chose to decline their offer of a full refund and a voucher in exchange for him returning the product for them to investigate.

He said: 'I didn't want to give it back to the store so instead I kept the roll intact and took it into my local council office for environmental health to investigate as I was concerned about the extent of the contaminated batch.'

A spokesman for Tesco said: 'We are sorry to hear about this incident and have apologised to Mr Smith.

'We understand that Mr Smith has sent the product to environmental health and we will support them with their investigation.

'We have procedures in place to stop this type of incident occurring so are disappointed to hear of this incident.'

North Norfolk District Council said it was aware of a complaint and would be passing the case onto South Norfolk Council as the Norwich Tesco Store was on its patch.

A spokeswoman for South Norfolk Council said: 'We are waiting for further information from North Norfolk Council, as soon as we have received this we will begin an investigation.'