Neville Linton, 63, was doing a regular grocery shop on a regular day. However, he found a “frightening” surprise in a bag of broccoli. He had purchased food as usual from an Aldi in West Midlands, England. But a few days later, he opened up the bag while cooking to find a snake snuggled inside the vegetable. It’s a person with ophidiophobia’s worst nightmare. Unfortunately, Linton had a fear of snakes.

A Sneaky Snake Rattles Grocery Shopper

Linton, who works in industrial cleaning, was rescued by his relatives, who jumped in and took the snake away from him. The grandfather of one admitted, “It was pretty frightening. I’m not good with snakes. It’s lucky I didn’t just leave the broccoli out in the kitchen, or it would have been loose in the house. That would have been a huge risk for us because we have two vulnerable people living here.”

After finding the creature, he called for his sister, Ann-Marie Tenkanemin, 57, who recognized it as a snake. The pair trapped the reptile in a plastic container and brought it back to Aldi. “I thought she was joking at first,” said Linton about Tenkanemin’s identifying the snake, “but I backed off when I saw it start moving. The guy in the shop was pretty frightened, too.”

Although he had been offered some compensation, Linton believes the situation should warrant more since the snake was a risk to the vulnerable relatives that lived with him, including his disabled son and his mother-in-law. “It’s just not good enough — the implications for us if it had [gotten] out in the house are huge,” he said. “Plus, I’m phobic of snakes, so there’s the emotional impact of that, too.”

An Aldi spokesperson commented, saying, “Our supplier has never had a complaint of this nature and has robust processes in place to prevent such issues occurring. We are investigating this isolated incident and have apologized to Mr. Linton that our usual high standards were not met.”