French mum makes food firm cough up for canned mouse

MONTPELLIER, France, Feb 9 (AFP) – France’s biggest maker of canned vegetables, Bonduelle, has been ordered to pay EUR 800 (USD 1,000) to a disgusted customer who tipped the contents of one of its products into her frying pan – and a dead mouse plopped out.

The customer involved, a woman preparing a family meal in February 2002, took the company to court after it tried to limit its compensation to another can of food, a recipe book and a voucher to the value of the fry-pan, court officials said Monday.

The firm argued that the woman and her family suffered no ill-effects from the nasty surprise.

But a court in the woman’s home city of Montpellier deemed late last month that “the presence of a dead animal, even a sterilised one, constitutes a misdemeanour in a food product” and ordered the firm to make the more substantial gesture.

© AFP

                                                              Subject: France news