A WOMAN with chronic fatigue has said she was disgusted after finding hundreds of black bugs crawling inside a packet of pasta she recently bought.

Mary Randall made the revolting discovery on Saturday after buying the bag of fusilli from the Tesco in Salisbury.

The 60 year old from Ringwood has no idea how the infestation of weevil bugs got into the 500g bag of Cook Italian pasta.

She said: “The whole packet of pasta was alive with hundreds of horrible black bugs crawling around. “I have no idea how they got inside, but it really makes my skin crawl.

“I’m not impressed that they have managed to get through the packaging.

“Some of the creatures are half an inch long, so they are very noticeable.”

Mary will be complaining to Tesco, but said she is not well enough to return the packet of pasta herself to the Salisbury store.

The ME sufferer said she is concerned other packets of pasta could also contain the creatures – it is the second such case reported by the Daily Echo in a week.

She added: “I’m not the first person this has happened to, but I want to make sure other people are aware this is happening because it’s really disgusting.”

A Tesco spokesperson said: “As soon as the item is returned to the store we’ll conduct a thorough investigation with the supplier and will, of course, keep the customer updated with the findings.”

A spokesman for Cook Italian, the company which makes the pasta, said: “Our key desire is to reassure your readers that all our products are made to very high quality standards, so they should not be concerned that this is normal.

Equally, though, we all have to accept that natural products attract natural issues from time to time but, that said, our processes are set up to eradicate all of these which are within our control to do so.”