A Feilding woman who cut her tongue with a shard of glass she says was in a shop-bought pavlova is appalled at the manufacturer's attitude to the incident.

Yesterday Lisa Clinton was sharing a Cowell's mini pavlova with her husband Darren at lunchtime when she felt a searing pain across her tongue.

"I spat out the pavlova and there was a shard of glass. It felt like I had bitten down on a razor blade.

"There was blood everywhere."

However, Cowell's managing director Richard Holmes was adamant the 38-millimetre piece of glass did not get into the dessert through the manufacturing process and said he had not recalled the product as he didn't think anyone else would be in danger of finding any glass.

"We have a no-glass policy in the factory and it could have got there through the cream she added or the fruit."

Mrs Clinton said that while she had added fruit and cream to the pavlova, which had come in a pack of six, the glass shard was embedded in the bottom of the meringue and nowhere near the cream.

"I can't believe his attitude. I phoned the supermarket where I bought it, gave them the batch number and they said they were going to take them off the shelves, but that is what he should have done."

Mrs Clinton said that when Mr Holmes visited her yesterday afternoon he asked to see the bowl the cream had been mixed in, and where the fruit had been prepared.

She said staff at Melody's New World in Palmerston North, where she bought the pavlovas, were very concerned and she had expected Mr Holmes to feel the same. "When I spoke to him I got the impression he didn't take what I said seriously which is why I phoned the paper."

When the Manawatu Standard spoke to Mr Holmes he was upset that Mrs Clinton had gone to the media.

Mrs Clinton said she wanted Cowell's to recall the product until they could ensure there was no risk to anyone else.

Mr Holmes said the company, "had determined there is no other risk with the product".

- © Fairfax NZ News