Complaints about food contaminated with insects, hair, pieces of skin, glass and rodent droppings were the most common when dealing with unfit food received by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland last year.
In all over a quarter of the 9,444 contacts made to the FSAI helpline dealt with issues concerning food and food establishments, the authority said in a report today breaking down details of information requests and complaints.
Consumers, it said, contacted them in relation to low hygiene standards; unfit food; inaccurate labelling information; and suspected food poisoning. In total, 1,981 complaints from consumers were lodged last year.
A breakdown of these showed 858 were about unfit food, 363 were on suspected food poisoning and a further 408 complained on hygiene standards.
In addition there were 112 complaints on incorrect information on food labelling, 20 on incorrect advertising of food products and 220 complaints described as "other".
"Records showed that contamination with foreign objects such as insects, hair, pieces of skin, glass and rodent droppings were the most common type of complaints concerning unfit food," said the report
"Misleading labelling and out of date food remaining on sale were noted as the most regular grievances amongst consumers regarding labelling issues," it said.