Tesco bosses have apologised after a shocked customer discovered mould growing in fridges in Herne Bay.

Darren George first spotted the mess on a drinks shelf at the Canterbury Road shop.

Mr George, who regularly shops in the Express store, said seeing the mould was a “bit disconcerting”.

He reported the issue to Tesco bosses via Twitter on Wednesday last week, who then apologised and cleaned the fridge the following day.

But when Mr George returned to the shop on Friday morning, he saw more mould in different spots in the refrigerated shelves.

He said: “It was something I spotted on Sunday evening and purely out of interest I wondered how long it would go unnoticed.

“When I first saw it I think it had already been there for a little while.

“It is one of those things and nobody is perfect, but you would hope that something like that would get sorted out relatively quickly.”

Tesco spokesman Alec Brown thanked Mr George for raising the issue.

He said: “A high level of hygiene in all our stores is our top priority, and so we were concerned to hear about this issue in our Herne Bay Express store.

“This has now been resolved and we would like to thank the customer for their feedback.”

Tesco staff replied to Mr George’s tweet on Friday, assuring him that the fridges had been cleaned.

The issue was also reported to Canterbury City Council bosses, who gave the shop a five-star food hygiene rating when it was inspected last March.

Authority spokesman Rob Davies said: “The rating relates to conditions found at the time of the most recent inspection.

“Obviously it is not possible for us to be there every day checking, so reports like this from the public are very helpful. The details have been passed to our environmental health team and we will be following this up with Tesco.”