OH CRUMBS! A group of OAPs were left with a nasty taste in their mouths after mistaking packs of soil for cookies.

The residents of sheltered accommodation flats in Weymouth told of their horror after choking on mouthfuls of grit after mistaking a branded butter's promotional pack of soil and seeds for cookies.

Three elderly people in the space of two hours alerted the manager of Lawrence Court residential care homes in Southill Garden Drive, Weymouth to the ‘misleading’ Lurpak giveaway.

John and Jean Hobbs’ delight at finding what they thought were free biscuits with their butter turned to disgust when mud filled their mouths and they realised it was a lump of soil and dill seeds.

Pensioner John, 79, said: “It was just as though I’d got a mouthful of grit, it was terrible.

“You imagine that young children would think ‘that’s edible’ but even the seeds weren’t edible so we got a double dose – seeds that weren’t edible as well as a mouth of grit.

“It was especially confusing because it was attached to food.

“You wouldn’t go into a garden centre and get a pot plant with a sandwich strapped underneath.

“It could have been dangerous if we’d swallowed mouthfuls of it, we had to spit it out.

“My wife had a coughing fit, she was in a terrible state.”

Lawrence Court manager Sharon Grange is warning people to be aware of the possible danger.

She said: “I went to visit John and Jean Hobbs and they told me they’d just bought a pack of Lurpak that had biscuits with it.

“Both of them almost choked to death because it was actually soil.

“I said ‘you need to get on to Lurpak and tell them’ because it really looked like cookies.

“An hour later my mother-in-law came up to see us and said to me ‘look at this butter I bought today, I ate these biscuits and they taste awful’.

“I said ‘oh my goodness, they’re not biscuits’.

“You wouldn't think to read the pack because it looks so much like cookies. It’s really dangerous – how many other people have done this if that’s three people in a couple of hours?

“Why have they made them to look like cookies?”

Sharon’s husband Tony Grange said: “We live on the site and we’ve had two or three residents say that they thought it was a cookie.

“It looks identical to a packaged cookie you get in some cafes on the side of your coffee but it's actually a piece of mud with seeds on top.

“It comes in a little packet and a few of them have tried to eat it.

“These are old people and you can see why they did it; it honestly looks like a little cookie.”

No one from Lurpak was available for comment.