A DARTFORD pensioner thought she’d had her chips when an eight-and-a-half-inch metal bolt clattered out of her McCain bag onto her cooking tray.

Jean Brown, of Trevithick Drive, Temple Hill, said she "almost had a heart attack" when she went to make her dinner and the bolt dropped onto her foot.

The 85-year-old was bought the chips by one of her daughters from the Co-operative supermarket in Henderson Drive.

She said: "I was doing something for my tea, so I got the bag of chips out of the freezer and put it in the tin, but this bolt bounced off it and fell onto my foot.

"It was such a shock to my system. I thought ‘Blooming hell, what’s this?’"

"I nearly had a blooming heart attack. It’s a blooming great thing - it’s come off some machinery."

Mrs Brown said her foot suffered some minor bruising, but she was more worried about the safety of McCain factory workers.

She said: "It really traumatised me. I thought somebody would get hurt with that bolt missing off the machinery.

"It could have someone’s arm off. It’s worried me and I’m concerned."

McCain’s most recent advert ends with the slogan ‘Happy Days’ and despite the unfortunate incident, Mrs Brown is still fond of the brand’s products but not so much their customer service.

She said: "I always have McCain’s chips and I like their jacket potatoes. I’m quite put off, but it all depends on how I feel later on."

A spokesman for McCain said the company’s factory is not the source of the bolt but they have no idea where it could have originated.

He said: "McCain Foods is very sorry that Mrs Brown has reported to have found a foreign body and for any distress this has caused. 

"However, we do not believe the bolt originated from the McCain factory, as all products that are produced in McCain’s factories are sealed after they are produced and then go through a metal detector, which is regularly tested every hour to ensure that it is working correctly. 

"If there were to be any metal inside, the bag would be automatically discarded."

He added: "We have not received the bolt from Mrs Brown, but from the picture we have seen, we cannot understand how this could have happened."

But Mrs Brown told News Shopper she refuses to accept McCain’s apology and would not be posting them the bolt.

She said: " I’m not going to do that because it would get lost in the post and they would deny they ever received it.

"And I would have to pay for postage and with that blooming bolt in it, it would be expensive.
"I can’t afford that, I’m a pensioner."

Co-op store manager Alex Mirzas told News Shopper: "First of all, I would like to apologise to Mrs Brown.

"It is an isolated incident, but I am happy to offer her a refund and a replacement product even though it’s not our product."