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Tiny Beetles Make Way Into Cereal Jar (http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050308/D88N0I681.html)

Mar 8, 3:20 PM (ET)

HONG KONG (AP) - An upscale Hong Kong grocery store was fined $641 after selling a jar of breakfast cereal infested with hundreds of tiny beetles, company executives said Tuesday.

A local magistrates' court was told earlier that the customer, lawyer Philip Dykes, found 575 beetles in the plastic jar he bought from the Great food store in 2003. Dykes reportedly said that the breakfast cereal was "too organic for my liking."

On Monday, a magistrate convicted Great of a charge selling "food not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by the purchaser" and imposed the fine, the company confirmed.

The company's lawyer argued that the insects must have found their way into the jar before the lid was sealed by the manufacturer in Ireland. But the magistrate ruled that the company failed to prove the jar had been properly sealed.

Great's spokeswoman Teresa Pang said the company is "very disappointed and very discontented" with the ruling and is "seriously considering an appeal."

Pang said "the minute grain beetles found in the jar are commonly found in Europe and experts confirmed that they are not harmful to human health."

She said the store has sold more than 650 jars of the product - Bunalun Organic Vanilla Granola Breakfast Cereal - since 2001 and the case was the first such complaint against it.