Most people opt for naan bread with a curry, but one man from West Malling found his came with a centipede.

The three-inch long creature crawled out of the chicken tikka masala that Jason Damms bought from Tesco in the town’s High Street.

He and girlfriend Kim Wakefield sat down to the microwaveable meal at his flat in the High Street late on a Saturday night.

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But after plating up, the black centipede appeared from the food and tried to make a run for it.

Mr Damms, a warehouse manager at a firm in Mereworth, said: “I sat down to eat it and this thing crawled out of the middle. It moved really fast. When it ran it got bigger.

“It was moving fast. I put the food back in the original packaging and took it straight round there. By then, the thing had died. I left it on top of the food.”

Mr Damms says it was not possible for the centipede to have got in after he had bought the meal as he had only pierced the film lid before sitting down to eat it.

Staff at Tesco, who thought it might have been a caterpillar, said they would freeze it and send it off for testing.

He then received a letter from Tesco, with a £15 gift card as a gesture of goodwill.

The letter said: “I am sorry to hear that you found a caterpillar in the tikka masala and I can appreciate how disappointing this would have been. I’d like to reassure you how rare it is.

“Despite our precautions you still found a caterpillar in your chicken tikka masala and pilau rice.”

Centipede found in Tesco masala

But Mr Damms was later contacted and told the firm was dismissing his complaint.

“I am not happy with this,” he said. “Their gesture was an insult. When I rang them, they said their manufacturers were saying there was no way that would have survived the microwave.

“But there is no other way it could have got in there.”

A spokesman for Tesco said: “We set ourselves very high standards for the safety and quality of our products.

“Our suppliers have conducted a full investigation and we have provided Mr Damms with a gesture of goodwill.”

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