PARASITE: A Mercadona customer (left) pulls the anisakis parasite out of his daughter’s fish, while (right) the worm is compared to a euro coin

MERCADONA has been forced to explain itself online after a customer accused the supermarket giant of having parasites in its fish.

Jor Montejano posted a video online of him pulling a live ‘anisakis’ parasite from his ‘cooked’ hake that he bought from Mercadona.

“There you have the little worm, how is he alive?” he said.

“It’s a good thing my daughter saw it before she ate it,” the father added, “ it almost gave us something, and it was in the oven.”

Mercadona claimed it was making ‘all efforts to control and minimize’ the anisakis.

The retailer said: “It is not a problem for Mercadona fish, it is a challenge for the fishing sector, which is why the Spanish Food Safety Agency recommends cooking completely or freezing it for at least five days.”

Anisakis is usually found in raw fish, including haddock, cod, salmon and monkfish.

If the parasite is ingested by humans it can cause vomiting, nausea and violent abdominal pain.

Subscribe to the Olive Press

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.