Parents Outraged After Finding Mold, Insects & MAGGOTS In This Baby Food!

Countless parents took to social media to express their anger after finding mold, insects, and even maggots inside baby food.

The company Cow and Gate, which has been packaging and selling baby food for over 50 years, is at the center of the controversy as numerous parents post photos online of the sickening discoveries:

Along with photos, parents described their frustrations.

Kelly McAuley, a mother, wrote:

Absolutely disgusted at finding this spider in one of your boxes of creamy porridge 4-6 months! How horrendous is this!

What if I hadn’t noticed and my little girl had eaten it!? Mortified! I have always trusted your brand and use your jars too! but i no longer will be doing! I feel physically sick! Makes me wonder just how clean your factories are!

After finding a fuzzy white patch—presumably mold—Nikita Morse wrote:

Cannot believe my eyes, brought this jar of food yesterday as my daughter has begun her weaning journey and we wanted to try some new flavours went for cow and gate as it’s a well known brand and its mouldy!!

The BBD is 2018 and I’ve stored it correctly so glad I always check mould in in the food and all round the lid and it was secured correctly!! Be careful people make sure you check food!!

Photo from Nikita Morse

According to Rebecca Shearing, a fruit pot she purchased had “mould inside” that she had almost overlooked before feeding it to her child. “Glad I didn’t give it to my 6 month old!”

However, some parents weren’t so lucky. According to Sonya Overall, it wasn’t until she’d fed her baby an entire fruit pot that she noticed a strange substance at the bottom:

Although she originally thought it was the carcass of some kind of amphibian, Cow and Gates told her it was just mould.

Inundated with complaints, the company released the following statement:

The quality and safety of our products is our top priority and our factories maintain strict internationally recognised hygiene and production standards.

We want everyone to enjoy our products in the best possible condition; Cow Gate has been making baby foods for over 50 years to the highest standards.

We know that there are a number of concerned parents at the moment, but we are not actually seeing a higher level of complaints than usual. What is unusual is that lots of people are talking about this and so we wanted to respond.

We produce around 18,000 pots every day.

Cow and Gate continued in its statement:

It’s true that there will always be some instances where products don’t meet the high standards parents have come to expect. Occasionally this originates in our factory, but there may also be problems as products are transported and stored. Our factories are regularly audited by independent inspectors.

All our products are made from natural ingredients and then packed in a highly controlled and hygienic environment. For example, our fruit pots are sieved, heat treated, sealed and placed in a protective cardboard wrap. Each product that we have received these complaints about comes from a different batch and/or factory, and our records show there have been no incidents during production.

Of the pots we have investigated most appear to have been accidentally damaged in transit or storage. For example in some cases we can see puncture holes in the foil lid. But, these products clearly do not meet our usual high standards and for this we are very sorry.

We want our foods to reach parents in the best condition and we are and will continue to investigate every complaint.

We have explained what we are doing to the parents who have contacted us. Our Careline would really like to hear from all parents if they have any concerns.