A supermarket has apologised after a woman found a dead cockroach in her bag of spinach.

Laura Platt, 28, of Hurstpierpoint, told how she vomited after making the skin-crawling discovery in her bag of washed Tesco spinach last month.

The beauty salon owner bought the vegetable from the Tesco Superstore in Burgess Hill.

But she only discovered the creepy-crawly when she went to cook the spinach for lunch – days after having already eaten half the bag.

Laura said: “I love greens and ate half a bag of it shortly after buying it.

“I was really poorly afterwards for about two days, but I didn’t know what could have caused it.

“To get myself better I thought I needed more vitamins so decided to go and cook the rest of it.

"That’s when I found it.

“I was shocked and went and threw up for about 20 minutes.

“I was feeling poorly already and I think when I found it, I realised that I’d probably eaten parts of the cockroach.

“It was disgusting.”

Laura phoned Tesco customer services to complain, but said she was greeted by a less-than-sympathetic advisor on the other end of the line.

She added: “She didn’t really care that there was a cockroach in my spinach and just said I should have gone to the doctors straight away. Because I didn’t she said I can’t prove I was sick because of the cockroach.

“They didn’t care much about what had actually happened.”

Tesco later offered Laura a written apology and a £20 voucher for groceries – but the good-will gesture was politely declined.

She said: “I haven’t eaten any greens since, it’s really put me off which is a shame. I can’t imagine how it got in there as the stuff is meant to be washed.

“Maybe it crawled in afterwards.”

Tesco told The Argus it sets itself “very high standards” for the quality of its food and apologised for the grim discovery.

A spokesman for the supermarket said: “We set ourselves very high standards for the safety and quality of our food and we were sorry to hear of this incident.

“We are investigating the issue with our supplier and will keep Mrs Platt informed with the findings.

“We have also offered Mrs Platt a gesture of goodwill for any inconvenience caused.”