17% rise in complaints to the Food Safety Authority

A live insect in a dessert, a human nail in a takeaway meal, and a cigarette butt in a bag of chips were among thousands of complaints made by the public to the Food Safety Authority.

New figures from the FSAI show its advice phoneline received 3,202 complaints by consumers relating to food, food premises, and food labelling last year. That was an increase of 17% on the 2015 figure of 2,739.

Meanwhile, the number of complaints about food poisoning jumped by 45% last year compared to 2015.