products table (mySQL)

record_id     categories (comma-delimited list)
---------     --------------------------------
1             960|1,957|1,958|1

I have the following dynamic query (simplified for the purposes of this question). The query is passed specified categories, each in the format xxxx|yyyy, and I need to return products having the passed category in its comma-delimited list of categories.

The current query looks like:

select p.* from products p
where (p.categories like '%27|0%' or p.categories like '%972|1%' or p.categories like '%969|1%')

But, the LIKE clause sometimes permits anomalies. I would like to write the query more like:

select p.* from products p 
where (p.categories contains '27|0' or p.categories contains'972|1' or p.categories contains  '969|1')

How would I do this?