A SNACKFOOD company has withdrawn a batch of crisps after a mix-up led to complaints from Muslim customers, it has emerged.

Golden Wonder said packets of cheese and onion crisps had mistakenly contained smoky bacon flavour.

The blunder resulted in a number of Muslims eating bacon flavouring. The crisps though don't contain any meat.

The manufacturer said it was doing all it could to pull the snacks affected from shelves.

A Golden Wonder spokesman said the company had received eight complaints.

He could not say how many packets were affected, but the number is believed to run into several hundred.

The spokesman said: "Golden Wonder apologises to anyone affected by this situation. We appreciate the concerns expressed by some people.

"However, we can assure them that both Golden Wonder cheese and onion and smoky bacon flavoured crisps are suitable for vegetarians."

Shami Khan, a spokesman for Edinburgh's Pakistan Society, said people who had eaten the mislabelled crisps had been very upset by the experience.

He said: "People are feeling very bad about the whole situation. This kind of thing happens to you once and it stays with you for the rest of your life.

"We have had an apology from Golden Wonder and that is fine but they don't seem to understand that we cannot eat meat flavoured products or meat.

"We would like to see better labelling in future."