Wigan man discovers beetle in his birthday takeaway

Paul Cowley, a 44-year-old dad of five, ordered a family feast of chicken burgers, fries and wings from local takeaway, Frankies in Ashton-in-Makerfield, to share together with his wife Karen and their children, at home on Sunday May 15.

They ordered the food via the delivery app, Just Eat and when it arrived, they began unpacking it to find the insect sitting on top of the portion of chicken wings.

After first trying to push the blame onto Just Eat, the takeaway has now offered the Cowleys a full refund.

Paul said: “It was disgusting. I opened the box and it was sitting there on top of the food.

"It just caught my eye, there was a big shiny beetle with legs. It was dead.

"I usually like to order from them quite a bit but this has completely put me off.

"We paid £44, which is quite a bit of money to spend at Frankies, because it’s cheap.

"I called them up but was told that I ‘ordered from Just Eat and not Frankies’.

"They offered to replace the box of wings that the beetle was in but wouldn’t refund the food, which we binned.

"I didn’t want more wings in place of the ones with a beetle inside. I didn’t want to eat any of their food so we ended up getting a KFC instead.

"It’s just their response which has annoyed me, they gave me the impression that they didn’t care.

"We didn’t contact Just Eat because it’s like opening a window and shouting into the dark when you go down those complaints procedures."

Frankies has now offered a full refund with management explaining they were “unaware” of the incident as they “were off over the weekend and had not been informed”. They have also reassured their hygiene standards offered to show the cleanliness of their kitchens.

A spokesperson for Just Eat said: “Just Eat is an online marketplace and the cooking and preparation of the food is the sole responsibility of the restaurant partner.

"If the customer got in touch with us we would investigate what happened and also advise the customer to report the incident to the FSA.”