A STARTLED mum says she was forced to bin her family’s steak dinner after finding a caterpillar in a corn on the cob.

Mandy Mason felt sick to her stomach when she spotted the unwelcome guest curled up inside the corn.

She’d bought the frozen veg from Poole’s Iceland store earlier in the month.

After pulling the caterpillar out her family felt so queasy they eventually skipped their meal for the night.

Mandy, from Swanage, explained: “I had them all on the boil. I was dishing up, this one was the last to go on. That’s when I saw a black thing in one of the corns.

“I just thought it was a black bit of corn to start with, but then I took a closer look and started to pull it out.

“I was pretty shocked to find it was a worm or a caterpillar. It really put us all off our dinner.

“We didn’t eat a thing that evening, none of us.”

After lodging a complaint call with the Poole store, Mandy accepted a £10 voucher.

She said: “As soon as I put the phone down I thought it had to be worth more than that because I threw our five dinners away.

“I contacted the Echo because I want other people to ensure they wash and check their food.

“I’ve never had a problem before but you never know what could be lurking in there. I’ll be checking everything from now on.”

* An Iceland spokesman told the Daily Echo: “Iceland would like to apologise for the distress and inconvenience this has caused to the customer.

“The customer was offered a gesture of goodwill from the store and we will be investigating the issue with the affected product with our supplier.”