Student finds insect in Market food

Sodexo and Pitt are investigating how a maggot-like insect infected a plate of pasta Friday at Market Central.

Pitt student John Buchner, under the handle @Johnny_JBe, tweeted out a video at 1:58 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, that shows a close-up of a dish of pasta with meat sauce, with an insect that looks like a maggot crawling between the noodles

“@PittDining my buddy found a maggot in his meal at market today. S*** quality food, disgusting. Want my money back,” Buchner said in his tweet accompanying the video.

In the video, a man’s voice can be heard saying, “Oh my [expletive] god. This is [expletive] Market for you. Holy [expletive].” The video, which appeared to be a Snapchat video, included a caption that read, “Never eating Market ever again.”   Abdou Cole, resident district manager of dining services for Sodexo at Pitt, said he met with Buchner Friday afternoon after he tweeted the video. According to Cole, Buchner said the infected plate wasn’t his but his friend, Martin Hutto, who also tweeted out the video. Cole said he had reached out to Hutto, who is also a Pitt student, to meet with him as well, but had not heard back as of Sunday afternoon. Cole said Sodexo managers met with the Market employees who served Hutto the pasta. Cole said the employees said they hadn’t noticed anything unusual in the pasta before they served it to Hutto.   “We’re collecting information and talking to employees,” Cole said Sunday.   Cole said he could not answer most questions about the incident until a Pitt spokesperson could review his answers. Neither Buchner nor Hutto responded to requests for comment by Sunday afternoon. After Buchner tweeted the video, news of the incident spread on social media, even prompting an unknown Twitter user to a launch a @pittmaggot account, joking “((low key, I recommend the pasta for dinner)).” 

Pitt Dining replied to Buchner’s tweet about 40 minutes later saying, “@Johnny_JBe OMG! Please DM us immediately so a Market manager can meet with you & your friend. We take these complaints very seriously.”

In response to other tweets from Twitter users, Pitt Dining has tweeted twice since Friday that it was investigating the situation and would post updates when it had them.