A mum-of-three has spoken of her horror at the moment that she bit into a supermarket baguette to be confronted by a needle and thread.

Rosemary Hooper bought the cheese and onion pizza baguette along with two prawn sandwiches from Safeway in Malvern to take on a trip to Leicestershire.

It was as she ate it while watching a cricket match between Worcestershire and Leicestershire a few hours later that her 14-year-old son Mark noticed something hanging from the freshly cooked baguette.

It turned out to be a piece of green thread and when Mrs Hooper pulled it a sewing needle emerged from the bread.

"It had obviously been cooked in the baguette," said 44-year-old Mrs Hooper, of Leigh Sinton, near Malvern.

"It isn't something I'd normally buy. But it was a case of a tight schedule between leaving work and picking up Mark from school.

"I popped in to buy something convenient as we were going on this outing."

When the pair got to the match they split the baguette, which has a baked pizza topping, between them. Mark ate his first.

"If Mark hadn't have noticed it I would've eaten it," said Mrs Hooper.

"Especially with the flood- lights I would never have seen it. It doesn't bear thinking about.

"The thing is, I have friends with small children who like pizza. Just thinking about it gives me the shakes. I could have spent the night in an operating theatre miles away from home. It was a close call."

Mrs Hooper, a receptionist at Worcestershire's New Road ground, said she believed the cotton on the needle matched the colour of the Safeway staff uniforms.

Mrs Hooper, who bought the baguette from Safeway's own bakery department on Friday afternoon, said she returned to the store and complained to a manager but was told "these things do happen".

She now intends to hand the baguette complete with needle and thread over to Worcestershire's Trading Standards department.

The store's duty manager Kevin Pill said an investigation had began, but he was not aware how the needle could have possibly got into the product.

"There's no reason for a needle to be in the bakery," he said.