Photo: Courtesy FOX 2
Grimes, of Troy, Mich., told Slashfood she noticed something moving inside the package as she was getting ready to make a salad for dinner.
"I didn't know what I was seeing but sure enough, I looked a little closer and there was a small light green tree frog, happy as can be, crawling around, living life in the bag of lettuce," she said Tuesday. "I just sort of gasped a bit, and then I stared and just remember thinking 'That's not right.'"
Grimes decided to keep the frog -- still in the bag of lettuce -- for three days in the garage, stored in a paper bag. "I didn't really want it in my house," she said.
A FOX 2 camera crew came on Monday to document Grimes opening the bag. The video clip shows the frog leaping out of the lettuce and onto the kitchen counter.
While the Grimes children wanted to keep the frog as a pet, the family released it into their backyard.
Kroger spokesman Dale Hollandsworth said that the grocery chain has never before had reports of frogs found in bags of the chain's lettuce.
"We're obviously very surprised that that little thing survived harvesting. It survived trimming. It survived washing. It survived cooling the product to 40 degrees and then being in the package," he told Slashfood. "I hope that's a tribute to how gently we handle our lettuce when we're harvesting and cleaning it."
Hollandsworth offered the Grimes family an apology and said the store would replace the romaine lettuce. He offered his backyard pond as a potential home for the frog.
Grimes, however, doesn't foresee Kroger lettuce in her future. "I certainly won't be buying this grocery store's lettuce ever again."
And her son has also grown leery of salad. "Literally as the reporter and the camera were leaving, my son said 'I'm never eating lettuce again,'" she said. "I thought 'Oh boy.'"
Have you ever found a foreign object in your food? Spill it in the comments below.
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