"It was really disgusting": Customer finds insect inside chicken fillet from Rami Levy
Lital Barkan purchased a package of chicken fillet at a Rami Levy branch for a family meal, only to discover an insect embedded inside the meat. The supermarket chain referred her to the A-T Group slaughterhouse, which denied responsibility. The Ministry of Health has launched an investigation into the incident.
This is the nightmare of many Israelis: preparing a family meal, nearly finishing the process, only to discover something horrifying at the end and realizing the entire meal must be discarded. This is what happened to Lital Barkan, who purchased a package of chicken fillet at a Rami Levy branch in Kfar Saba. In the second-to-last piece, she discovered a chilling sight: a creature that was once alive, stuck inside the meat with its legs still attached.
"It was really disgusting," she describes the feeling.
Barkan, who identifies the creature as a tick, states that the package was vacuum-sealed and had been in her freezer for three months. "This is a Mehadrin product, and I intentionally buy it for the supervision to avoid such things. I am a pregnant woman, and this lunch was intended for my 4-year-old child and an infant as well," she says.
Following the discovery, Barkan contacted Rami Levy, where they referred her to the Cornish Hen slaughterhouse of the A-T Group. The slaughterhouse immediately denied that the issue could have originated with them. "It amazed me how they brushed me off. Rami Levy threw me to the slaughterhouse, and there they told me it wasn't them. The shifting of responsibility annoys me the most," she says.
An official written response from the A-T Group, signed by their quality manager, later claimed that the insect in the photos was in too well-preserved a state to have been inside the product during the freezing period. The company stated there was no evidence that the insect originated from their production or packaging process.
Barkan maintains that the package was completely sealed until the moment of cooking — "I opened it with a knife" — which left no room for external contamination. She filed an official complaint with the Ministry of Health, which was classified under "foreign objects."
"My gynecologist looked at the pictures and said, 'Oh my God,' noting that this could have ended in serious consequences for the fetus," she says.
The Ministry of Health stated that the inquiry is under review. Because the product was pre-packaged at the slaughterhouse, the complaint was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture, which oversees slaughterhouses. In parallel, the Ministry of Health's Food Service will conduct an inspection at the Rami Levy branch to examine storage conditions. The A-T Group and Rami Levy did not respond to requests for comment.
