On January 6, 2019, a Facebook user shared a video of purported bugs and insect pieces she found in a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli purchased the previous night at a Walmart in Enterprise, Alabama.
In the clip, the user dissects a number of raviolis next to a can of Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli. In a separate post the day before, she wrote:
Do NOT eat or feed your kid(s) Chef Boyardee mini ravioli!!!! I happened to open one ravioli when trying to separate them to cook for Finn’s lunch and these are the BUGS and LARVAE we found inside the “meat.” We got the four pack from Enterprise, AL Walmart last night. The expiration date is Oct 2020. [emojis] We’ll call the company on [January 7 2019]. [angry emoji]
An update said:
We added the video of opening the rest of the ravioli and a pic of the kids eating breakfast. We will also be shopping at Walmart in Enterprise still because this is not their fault. The company caning just needs to be aware. We are not seeking fame (that’s hilarious) or will we “sue” someone. That’s ludicrous. Just a public service announcement when I found them and had the same reaction as 90% of the people on here…. Eew.
As of January 14, 2019, we were unable to find any updates from the poster regarding the video. Virtually all posts shared by visitors to Chef Boyardee’s Facebook page pertained to the “bugs” video, but we found no response to any of the queries. Although their Twitter timeline was active and several tweets responded to customer inquiries, no reference was made to the video.
We contacted Chef Boyardee’s parent company ConAgra Brands to ask about the video’s claims. They responded:
On rare occasions, during the cooking process, the caramel coloring may not thoroughly mix into the batch resulting in small, dark color pieces in and on the meatballs. This is not a bug, although it may resemble one.