This happened at the huge Migros in Glatt. I picked up some strawberries that looked great and on closer inspection, I saw little Slimey, the worm, wriggling around amongst the lush strawberries.
Horrified, I passed it on to one of the staff pointing to the worm. Instead of being mortified, he laughed it off and even said the worm was cute and asked me if it was beautiful. I was rendered speechless. I probably need to HTFU.
Check your fruits and veg closer the next time you are out food shopping.
That made me chuckle... I just brought fly worms home in BIO basil, ugh. A worm does mean there probably is not much of a chemical film on them, but one never knows, it's not a safe indicator at all.
Strawberries from Lidl hugely dissappointed us the other day, moldy mush in a couple of hours.
While we are at checking, I was surprised when I found worms in the celery stalks from Migros. Ton in the leaf part.
What I took from the OP's post is the disgusting reaction of the staff. If a concerned patron (matron) points out a problem, you do not chuckle. If I was manager of that place the guy would have been fired on the spot. Ugh, I gotta get out of this country for a bit.
A Swiss friend of mine always said he didn't mind finding a worm in his lettuce from time to time while washing it, his logic was no worms = lots of pesticides. He said he'd rather pluck an occasional worm out of the lettuce rather than wonder how many poisons were still inside of his salad while he ate it.
Little worms and bugs are a good sign in my book. Maggots are another thing...
As to strawberries- I've bought them from Coop, Migros, Manor, Lidl, and from Geant in France in the last weeks (little one is on a jahody kick). All of them included a good portion of mashed up or otherwise manky berries, one of the baskets sprouted fine hairy mold after a day on the counter at home.
The one exception was the French berries. These were excellent!
I know it's an old story but I still can't figure out why Swiss grocery stores are hell bent on offering mushy wilted produce. I'll take a bright green worm over mold anyday.
We opened a can of baked beans once (in the UK), and there were LOTS of little worms inside. We complained to Heinz, and they made up some rubbish about the beans inside having sprouted ....But they did send us shed loads of vouchers for free Heinz goodies....
Last week, I bought some raspberries from Coop in the morning, and by that evening they had furry mould growing on them
He is right, sans the matron part. I can live with the worm but not the attitude. A simple "thank you for pointing that out" would suffice. Heck, I dont even mind a fake horror expression. But asking me if it was cute? w.t.f
lol as a student I worked at sainsburys, one sat all the dogsbody students where called into the managers office and asked to search for a very large spider that had run out of the bananas and under the shelving, they thought it was a tarantula.
Needless to say we didn't look too hard, and no one found it, shop stayed open too.
Did he make you pay for it or forced you to eat it? Otherwise I would advise you to HTFU and take it easy.
When women go all shrieky because a tiny spider hangs cozily in his net 5 meters away I usually just point out to them how beautiful these creatures can be if you look at them closely (never works though).
Probably the guy was just humored by the fact that a grown up women can be horified by 5mm of worm.
I too was really disappointed with Strawberries from Lidl and bought them on the first day of the new store opening!
As for worms I would always wash all my fruit and veg anyway.......having grown my own Vegetable I know I seem to spend an age washing and picking my freshly grown rocket that I sometimes wonder if it is better just to buy it! But then the other day I asked my six year old son to pick some for me and he said "how much mum" I replied about fifty stems. I had to grin when I heard him count each stem out!
I am surprised that things have not changed over the years. When I was a Kid in Switzerland I would not eat my veggies because of all the worms and bugs I would find.
Here in California I am in veggie heaven. No worms or bugs but alot of Pestisied. I don't know what is better, eating organic or lots of poison.
I know when I get back to Switzerland next month I will not eat much on veggies again
I haven't found worms in my Strawberries from Migros but I find their food molds fast, esp the strawberries..or I look at it in the store and it is already molding (ex. sweet potatoes, broccoli, carrots) You just have to inspect it as much as you can at the store and deal with what you get when you get home. Something I had to get used to being from the States.
I do find the the fresh veg. from Spar is more fresh. The strawberries from the one in Kloten are wonderful.