I've had some pretty nasty experiences with worms in my life, and it may amaze those that are familiar with my botfly encounter that nothing has *ever* turned my stomach quite like my experience today. I've summarized it an email to the Hershey's company, and snipped it for posterity into my blog:
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I purchased a Hersheys Special Dark 5 oz bar – like I do each week – and upon opening it, noticed a strange residue on the inside of the wrapper. I broke off my normal small portion – 1 small rectangle of chocolate – and as I was rewrapping the candy I noticed that there was a small caterpillar/maggot on the opposite end of the bar I had been eating. Closer inspection revealed that there was quite bit more of the odd residue around this bug, and that the worm was ALIVE and was CONSUMING the chocolate as I watched – and it was clear the residue I had noticed was the droppings of this worm/caterpillar/maggot – and that I had eaten some of it with my square, as the package was filled with a fine dusting of this material.
This was a surprising and abhorrent discovery, and one which immediately turned my stomach. I threw away the chocolate (although I did snap a photo or two of the worm with my cell phone camera). I did inspect the packaging, thinking perhaps something chewed its way into the chocolate at the store – but I saw no evidence of this. Seemingly, the chocolate left the packaging facility with the worm (or eggs of the worm) in it.
I purchased this chocolate at a Kroger grocery store in Houston – on Greens Rd and Interstate 45. I saved the outer wrapper – there are some numbers on it – perhaps these will be of use to you – 86 J, and on the next line, 6H A.
Since I threw away the chocolate and the inner wrapper in disgust, I did not attempt to return it to the store. It may be some time before I can eat a Hershey's chocolate – if ever again.
This is definitely a first for me with packaged food. I've found bugs (even live ones) on produce before, but never in packaged/prepared food.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm reporting this to you, as I'm not sure that I want anything out of this note. I suppose I wanted to let someone know that this experience has perhaps ruined me on what was my favorite chocolate. That last fact alone is disturbing enough that I want to share it. Perhaps this will alert you to a larger issue with this 'batch' of chocolate. I don't really know, and honestly, I don't care. I'm just very dissatisfied that there was a live worm in my chocolate and I simply wanted the Hershey's company to know about it.
I don't expect to be contacted, but if someone would like to get in touch with me and perhaps provide some reasoning for how something like this could have happened (Is it common? Is this a normal problem? Was this a 'bad batch'?), that might be nice.
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