A SHOCKED York woman said today she choked on a piece of glass as she ate a bowl of ice-cream.

Karen Tweed said she managed to cough up the fragment, but her experiences left her with the taste of blood and a sore throat.

She believed the consequences could have been much more serious if the glass had been in another portion of ice-cream from the same tub, eaten two hours earlier by her two-year-old niece, Abbie.

Karen, of Huntington Road, said she had been visiting her sister-in-law, Jacqui Martin, at her home in Swinton, near Malton, on Sunday when they had opened the tub of ASDA raspberry ripple ice-cream.

"I started choking, and managed to cough it up," Karen said.

"My husband thought, at first, it was a piece of ice until he cut his finger on it. It was like the top of a drinking glass. I could taste blood in the back of my throat and it's left me with a sore throat, but it could have been much worse. It could have been Abbie, and she wouldn't have been able to cough it up. She and my nephew, Jordan, six, had eaten some ice-cream from the tub a couple of hours before I did. I was very shocked."

She said she was concerned that other fragments could be in other ice-cream tubs and could hurt someone else.

Jacqui said she had bought the two litre tub of ASDA own-brand ice-cream from the company's store at Monks Cross, York, where she was a regular customer.

She said she had rung a helpline number and the store on Monday, but felt the matter had not been dealt with as a matter of major importance or urgency.

She said she was told it could take a fortnight to investigate what had happened. She was asked to drop off the tub at the store at her convenience when she was next visiting.

She believed other tubs should be removed from shelves to ensure that no one else experienced the same problems.

Jacqui said she had now complained to Ryedale District Council's environmental health department.

An ASDA spokeswoman insisted today that the complaint was being treated as a matter of the utmost importance, and staff had believed that Mrs Martin was happy with their response.

She said an investigation was being launched into how the fragment of glass had got into the ice-cream, but it was correct that this could take about a fortnight to complete.

She said the inquiries would go back to the manufacturing plant, where great efforts were made to ensure foods were not contaminated.

Mrs Martin had been asked to bring the ice-cream tub and glass either to ASDA's headquarters in Leeds, or back to the store, whichever was more convenient, so that the glass could be analysed.

She said no other complaints had been received about any other ice-cream tubs.

Updated: 10:15 Wednesday, March 23, 2005