Unpleasant surprise

FLEUR COGLE/The Timaru Herald

MMM MAGGOTS: Hillary and Gillan Harris found a wriggly surprise in their pizza.

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A Timaru teenager could be off pizza for life after finding a nasty surprise on some birthday leftovers.

Hillary Harris and her family ordered three pizzas from Domino's Pizza at lunch time on Sunday to celebrate her 13th birthday.

They ate two pizzas, but a third which had not been touched and was still in its box was put in the fridge for leftovers.

On Sunday evening Hillary and her brother Gillan, 11, decided to finish the pizza for dinner, and reheated it in the microwave.

"We were timing ourselves to see who would eat it faster," Hillary told the Timaru Herald.

It was Gillan who noticed very tiny larvae wriggling about on the garlic prawn pizza – after he had already eaten some of it.

She wondered how the larvae got on the pizza. "We put it in the fridge. [The maggots] wouldn't have come from the fridge."

Hillary's aunt took the pizza back to Domino's and received an apology and an offer of another pizza, which the family were not keen on.

Domino's Pizza released a statement acknowledging an incident where a customer allegedly found maggots in a pizza and said an investigation had commenced into the incident.

"Domino's takes this incident, and any food safety or foreign object incident, seriously. We have commenced our investigation into this incident which includes following our standard foreign object policy of collecting the sample for testing by a government-certified laboratory," Domino's public relations manager Sarah Morgan said.

Domino's Timaru had followed all Domino's food safety and foreign object policies correctly and had provided a full refund to the customer. "Domino's has strict policies and procedures on food safety including a food safety programme, which has been approved by the New Zealand Food Authority.

"This food safety programme is regularly assessed by external food safety auditors in every store as part of our operational evaluation and food safety audit.

"All Domino's staff undergo frequent training with our food safety programme to ensure all policies and procedures are followed in store.

"This training is updated frequently to ensure Domino's standards meet those set by the NZ Food Authority and Food Standards Australia New Zealand."

- © Fairfax NZ News