A man has lost his job after a loaf of supermarket bread caused him to fail a drugs test.
Marcin Konieczny, 35, claims he has never used any illegal substances, doesn't smoke and rarely drinks, but traces still showed up in one of his samples.
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According to the factory worker, the cause of the negative result was a £1.58 poppy loaf of bread from Aldi, but despite Marcin's pleas to his bosses they refused to listen to him and he was sacked on the spot.
Determined to prove his innocence, he began researching the topic and found evidence that failed tests can be linked to poppy seeds, which are found on bread and buns.
The dad-of-two, who has lived in the UK for the past 14 years, realised that he regularly eats Aldi's Honey Soaked Seeded Bloomer. Believing the bread could be the cause of his failed test, he decided to bring a loaf to a private lab for testing.
He said: "I started researching on the Internet and found stories of other people who tested positively for drugs after eating seeded bread.
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"My wife and I had just started changing our diet and eating more healthily. I had been eating the bread every day."
Samples of the loaf came back with the same results as Marcin's drug test - non negative, which means that traces had been detected in the batch.
Looking back at the incident, Polish-born Marcin, who lives in Middlesbrough, said: "I'm absolutely devastated. I felt so powerless and discriminated against so badly.
"I was so shocked because I have never smoked, never taken drugs and very rarely drink wine.
"I was forced to leave work straight away but I can't drive so I had to wait around in the cold all day for a lift."
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After seeing the results of the test, bosses from Cod Beck Blenders, an animal feed firm based in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, admitted there had been a mistake and would allow Marcin to return to work.
A spokesperson for the firm said: "In the circumstances we would have no objection in principle to this temporary worker returning here.
"Our usual procedure in this situation is to suspend the person on full pay until the correct chain of custody drug test is complete, i.e. we send off to lab for verification.
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"In this particular case, the result came back positive but the lab said it was consistent with a dietary source, not medication or anything untoward."
Though most of the opium is removed from the seeds during processing, it has been known for poppy seeds to retain enough of the substance for it to be detected in the urine up to 48 hours after eating.
Aldi declined to comment on the story.
Featured Image Credit: Triangle News
Topics: Science, Food, UK News, Interesting