A horrified mum fears her children could have ended up in hospital after discovering slug-like mould in a carton of orange juice.

Della-Marie Parnell purchased the drink from the Aldi store in Prospect Retail Park, Whitstable , on Tuesday afternoon.

When she opened the one-litre carton of Juice Company Smooth Orange Juice at home, she noticed the liquid was brown.

The mum-of-two refused to let her children drink it and left it aside until the following morning when she wanted to investigate further.

“I thought I want to actually see what’s inside it,” the 27-year-old said.

“When I squeezed all the juice out, mould was just hanging out. I cut it open and there was no damage done to the carton.

“It was like slime and it was mouldy - it looked like bits of slug. The smell was absolutely terrible, you could just smell mould and it made my eyes water.”

A grim picture, above, shows the clumps of mould in the carton - which has an expiry date of April 2021 on it.

The Seasalter resident fears her young children Rhome, two, and eight-year-old Hayden could have been hospitalised if they had drank it.

“They could have been severely ill and even worse it could have poisoned them,” she added.

“It could have been so bad - and with the pandemic going on as well, I would have had to get someone to take them to hospital and I couldn’t be there with them.

“The worst-case scenario would have been one of them could have been so ill to the point they would have had to stay in hospital for quite some time.”

An Aldi spokesman apologised and advised Ms Parnell to return the packaging to any store for a full refund.

“Although very rare, incidents like this can occasionally occur if packaging is damaged at any point before the product is consumed, as the contents may be exposed to air,” they added.

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