Shropshire family have Christmas dinner ruined by fluorescent green turkey from Tesco

A crown of turkey meat was cut in half to reveal unsightly green flesh, which left families going hungry on the big day.

They were among disgruntled Tesco shoppers who took to social media to express their dismay at their less-than-appealing lunches.

The off-colour meat is thought to be caused by a degenerative muscle condition in turkeys commonly referred to as green muscle disease, and is not harmful.

It happens after the inner breast muscle of the bird develops in a way that prevents blood supply from circulating, resulting in the green discolouration. Mother-of-four Rachael James, 33, picked up a frozen turkey from her local Tesco store in Whitchurch and was mortified to find green flesh when carving it on Christmas Day.

She said: "It was our Christmas lunch with our four young children and grandparents watching me carve.

"When I got it out of the packaging it seemed to be okay but once I had cooked it and started to carve it in front of everyone I noticed that there was something wrong with the centre of the turkey.

"It put everyone off their meal and ruined the meal, none of us felt like we could eat any of the turkey and ended up having the whole meal with no turkey.

"It ruined the meal completely – this was a meal that we had all been looking forward to for months as we have a had a stressful year."

Tesco has offered to refund Ms James and other customers from around the country who affected by the problem.

A Tesco spokeman said: "There's nothing more important than the quality of the food we sell so we were concerned to hear this has happened.

"We've offered a refund to the customers affected and will inform our supplier."