‘Danger’ spider found in grapes
SUPERMARKET giants Aldi are investigating after a horrified mum said she found a ‘false widow spider’ in a bag of grapes she had been feeding to her two young boys.
The arachnid is thought to have been living inside the punnet for days in Jennifer Perks’ fridge at her home in Heaton Moor.
Images appear to show the clear markings on the spider’s back which are a key identifying feature of Britain’s most venomous spider.
Jennifer, 34, said she had bought the grapes from Aldi in Heaton Chapel a few days earlier.
She said: “I’m very vigilant when it comes to fruit and veg – I’m aware of pesticides and always wash fruit and cut it up before I give it to the boys.
“I’d been picking the grapes off and I just saw it there, you could tell it had been there a while because there was a cobweb too, it was disgusting.
“I put it in a glass and showed my sister and she said it was a false widow, so I started doing some Googling and it looked exactly like the images.”
Jennifer, mum to sons Jacob, three, and Thomas, one, says she contacted customer services to tell them what she had found.
“They just told me to kill it. They didn’t even offer a refund to replace the grapes.
“It really freaked me out. I took everything out of my fridge and bleached it!
“I’ve heard some horror stories about people having severe reactions to false widow bites, it worries me what would have happened if one of my sons got bitten or ate it.
“Apparently, false widows coming over in fruit from foreign countries is becoming quite common so I just want people to be aware and make sure they check their fruit and veg before eating it.”
An Aldi spokesman said: “Whilst such issues can naturally happen in fresh produce, complaints of this nature are rare. We have apologised to Ms Perks for any distress this may have caused and we are investigating this incident with our supplier as a matter of urgency.”
Although there have been no reported fatalities, some people have experienced severe sideeffects from the spiders’ venom.
Some nasty cases include a man from Southampton who collapsed in 2012 and ended up in hospital after being bitten 10 times on the neck by what was confirmed as a false widow.
In October 2014, a man went into cardiac arrest and ended up in intensive care after being bitten by what he claimed was a false widow, on the hip, side and shoulder.