A routine Saturday night dinner in Western Australia became anything but ordinary for farmer Rhys Smoker and his housemates, following the discovery of a live frog in their supermarket-bought lettuce.
Mr Smoker was preparing a steak and salad meal for the three residents of his Esperance home when he spotted the amphibian among the leaves inside a sealed plastic bag.
His housemates, Laura Jones and Billy Le Pine, initially dismissed his claim.
“He’s like, ‘Oh Bro, there’s a frog in the lettuce.’ And we’re like, ‘No, you’re taking the mick, like that’s not real,’” Ms Jones told AP on Tuesday, explaining the slang term for attempting to fool someone.
Mr Smoker then brought the bag into the lounge room to show them. “Obviously there’s a little frog hiding out and, yeah, we all had a little laugh about it,” Ms Jones added.
The unexpected guest was subsequently named Greg by Mr Le Pine before being released into a nearby pond.
“We thought we’d give him a wee send off tune as we played Crazy Frog for him,” Le Pine told Australian Broadcasting Corp, referencing the Swedish CGI-animated character and Eurodance musician.
Smoker and his partner Lilli Ashby had bought the lettuce at a Woolworths supermarket in Esperance the same day Greg was discovered.
Five years ago, a shopper confronted a 3-meter-long (10-foot-long) nonvenomous diamond python on a shelf of a Woolworths supermarket in Sydney.
Also in 2021, a shopper discovered a venomous pale-headed snake wrapped in plastic with lettuce in an ALDI Sydney supermarket.
Woolworths said the frog in the salad was an isolated incident and there had been no other similar cases reported. A spokesperson said they had been in contact with the couple to apologise and provide a replacement item.
“Woolworths takes product quality and food safety very seriously.
“We work with a number of lettuce growers in WA and across Australia.
“Our suppliers have rigorous processes to maintain product quality. For heads of lettuce this involves washing and a number of quality checks, which includes checking for foreign materials, before they are packaged and sent to our stores.”
