High school students in Kentucky and Tennessee found maggots in their school lunches this week. A student at Overton High School in Tennessee made an Instagram video of the maggot wiggling around on the plate, WMC Action News 5 reported. Other students also reported finding maggots in their food.
Shelby County Schools sent a statement to the station that read; “It has been reported on some news outlets that multiple students are now claiming to have found maggots in their lunches this week at Overton High School. It is true that we have confirmation of one student finding an insect in a single meal. This is certainly regrettable; however, we do want to be very clear that there have been no maggots found in any meals this week. The temperatures at which our food is prepared and served do not allow for a maggot to be present. We believe it is probable that the insect found on one student’s plate may have come from a piece of fresh fruit that was served. We have performed a thorough inspection of all food supplies and found no evidence of contamination. Still, as a precaution, we discarded the food items that were used to prepare meals on the date of this report, and we have no further evidence to suggest this issue extends beyond one student’s plate. We serve more than 120,000 nutritious meals a day in our District, so we take food safety extremely seriously. All of our nutrition services employees are trained and certified in all aspects of food safety, including food preparation, handling and service.”
At Belfry High School in Pike County, KY, a student found maggots and mold on her food. The school’s principal told LEX18 TV: “We want to assure our students, parents, and community that we in no way would have knowingly served unsafe food to any child or adult.”
The school is looking for new vendors of the food in question. The Pike County Health Department investigated the school cafeteria and found no problems.
