A man says he was ‘shocked and disgusted’ to find a piece of plastic in his three-year-old son’s panini from a sandwich shop.

Ahmed Makda said he noticed the plastic in the chicken tikka panini from Taste in Randal Street, Blackburn as his son was about to take a bite.

He took the sandwich back to the shop and received a full refund for the item.

Environmental bosses at Blackburn with Darwen council confirmed the incident had been reported to them.

They also encouraged anyone with similar problems to keep the food wrapped up and stored and report it to the council for collection.

Mr Makda called for a thorough investigation as to why the plastic was in the food.

He said: “I was shocked when I saw it.

“It was a lucky escape. I want to see a serious investigation about how this happened.

“I’m looking to raise awareness for others and make sure they raise their standards.

“This is a young child that was eating it.

“I’m just disgusted with what’s happened, it’s sad.”

After discovering the plastic in the sandwich Mr Makda promptly took it back to the shop where he returned the panini to staff and was given a refund.

However he said he wants to raise awareness of the incident and the standards in the shop and reported the incident to the council.

The 37-year-old said he had been to the shop before and was an ‘infrequent visitor’ but would be ‘unlikely to go again’.

Blackburn with Darwen Council bosses said they would be carrying out a visit to the site to investigate.

Cllr Jim Smith, Executive Member for Environment, said: “We will be visiting the premises to see if we can work out where it came from.

“Our advice to anyone in a similar situation is to avoid touching or handling any foreign body found in food, to wrap everything back up and keep it in your fridge until an environmental officer can collect it.

“We would also advise people to check the Scores on the Doors website which publishes all food hygiene inspection results.”

Staff at the shop apologised for the incident and said they will be doing their best to make sure it does not happen again.

Abdul Azmed, who works at Taste, said: “We gave him a full refund for the panini straight away.

“I don’t know what happened and how it got there.

“We’re looking into the incident to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“I don’t know what happened, we have a site supervisor looking over things.

“We’re always passionate about our product.”