A GRANDFATHER was left with a sour taste after discovering a dead lizard in a tin of sweetcorn.
John Shier, 53, was cooking a meal for his wife and son last month when he uncovered the fully preserved body of a gecko stuck to the can’s lid.
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The sales manager, of Spalding, Lincs, did a double take after spotting the seven centimetre-long creature and likened the discovery to something out of a “bushtucker trial”.
Pictures show the squashed lizard sitting on top of the yellow veggies and a visible imprint of the animal under the ring-pull lid.
Dad-of-two John purchased the tin of Freshona sweetcorn from Lidl as part of a multipack and admitted he had some concerns over the contents of the remaining containers.
Speaking to The Sun, he said: “I thought I was on I’m a Celebrity, it was like a proper bushtucker trial challenge.
“I just wanted the sweetcorn, I didn’t really want a seven centimetre gecko to go with it!
“I was just cooking at home and making a usual stir fry, which means I normally just throw everything into a wok.
“I had already added one tin of the sweetcorn, but in the process of opening the second one this thing just caught my eye.
“I did a double take and saw what was sitting right on the top of the tin. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.
“That was it after that, I didn’t want to eat any of the ingredients I was eating because I couldn’t be sure what was in there. None of us wanted to eat any of the food.
“It’s lucky I spotted it really, I might have missed it or it could have been buried beneath the sweetcorn.
“If I had missed that and thrown it into the meal, or if it was buried in the tin, one of us might have ended up eating it.
“It’s safe to say that every tinned item I’ve opened since has been sieved before use.”
And John accused supermarket giants Lidl of “not taking it seriously” when they offered him a ten pound voucher after being presented with the evidence of his extraordinary find.
In a statement, Lidl said: “It is never our intention for our customers to be dissatisfied in any way.
“We take matters of this nature extremely seriously and pride ourselves on the rigorous quality assurance processes we have in place across our supply chain.
“Reports of this kind are exceptionally rare – we’ve received no other customer complaints, and we believe this to be an isolated case.
“Nonetheless, our Quality Assurance team is in contact with the customer directly on this matter.”
He added: “This isn’t a fly or a small insect, I would understand that because they are so miniscule.
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“But this is a lizard, which is fully intact and measuring seven centimetres.
“I’m shocked at their response, I thought they would take it more seriously.
“I don’t know the toxicity levels of a gecko but it could have been really poisonous. I certainly wouldn’t want to take the risk of eating one.
“It’s a bit of a joke. It’s bad enough I could have served it to my wife or son, but one of my grandchildren could have been eating that meal.
“I spend money in that store religiously every week and there is no recognition of my loyalty in their response.
“I have been offered a measly ten pound voucher. I’m not sure if I’m more disgusted at the lack of empathy or the ridiculous gesture.
“I will not be shopping there again.”
CREEPY CRAWLY Moment huge spider crawls out of family’s Aldi bananas in front of terrified two-year-old
Exclusive by Summer Raemason
THIS is the disgusting moment a massive spider crawls out of a family’s Aldi bananas.
Christopher Kirk picked up the fair trade produce at a supermarket on Carnation Way, Ashbourne, in the Peak District during the Easter holiday.
When they got to the hotel, Christopher was alerted to the huge arachnid by his screaming two-year-old daughter.
She shouted “spider” while her four-year-old sister also recoiled in terror.
A stunned Christopher took the, thankfully unopened, bananas straight back to Aldi.
He asked the store for a replacement which was accepted.
The dad-of-two also uploaded images of the eight legged crawler onto an insect-identifier app.
It generated results indicating it was a Huntsman Spider, which is a venomous species found in Asia.
Christopher told The Sun: “The holiday wasn’t really disrupted – we just wanted our kids to be able to eat something healthy.
“At the end of the day, I considered it a living creature and I didn’t want to harm it myself.
“However, we are now very wary of picking up bananas in a shop and inspect bags of them closely.
“We are also especially wary of loose bananas as it could well have been the bag that contained them that stopped us having a situation where one of us, including our young children, had been bitten.”
Thankfully no family members were bitten, albeit very shaken up.
An Aldi spokesperson referred to Paul Hillyard, a leading authority on arachnids and Science Associate of the Natural History Museum in London.
He said: “The families known for attaching their egg sac to a banana are harmless to humans.
“These small spiders sometimes build their nest on a banana because the fruit provides a safe and shady location close to the tiny fruit flies upon which the spiders feed (the spiders have no interest in the banana itself).
“The nesting practices used by these small, harmless spiders are very different to those used by the sort of tropical spiders that might justifiably cause alarm (e.g. the large, agile, huntsman-type spiders and Brazilian Wandering spiders) – most of these carry their egg sac in their jaws or bury it in the leaf litter, rather than attach it to a substrate such as a banana.”
An Aldi spokesperson said: “While it is extremely rare for naturally occurring foreign bodies like this to be found on fruit, it can happen in exceptional circumstances due to outdoor growing conditions.
“However, we want to reassure our customers that this type of spider is harmless and poses no risk to their safety.”
This comes as other shoppers from supermarkets across the UK have made horrifying discoveries.
One customer was left disgusted after discovering some-fin fishy crawling in his Sainsbury’s cod – a two- inch parasitic worm.
He was looking forward to the fish for his Friday night supper, but lost his appetite after noticing the creepy-crawly.
Elsewhere, a couple who ordered a McDonald’s to help with their hangovers were left feeling even more sick after discovering a giant bug inside one of the burgers.
Cathy Suzuki, 25, ordered the new Homestyle Crispy Chicken and a triple cheeseburger through the UberEats app as she and boyfriend Craig How recovered from the night before.
The pair decided to split the £18.80 meal, and cut the chicken burger in half so it could be easily shared.
However, when they did, a whopping insect dropped out from between the buns.
Meanwhile, another mum found a snail in her McDonald’s chicken wrap.
And, this is the horrifying moment a family discovered a ‘snake-like’ creature slithering out of a Sainsbury’s potato bag.
The stomach-churning footage showed a slimy invader hiding inside the superstore packaging.
