A couple in Birmingham were horrified to find a dead lizard floating in a tin of tomatoes while preparing lunch.
Sanam Hussain, 27, spotted the dead reptile lurking in the diced tomatoes while she was making a curry.
Euro Foods, a wholesale supplier, said it was investigating how the lizard could have got into the tin.
Hussain’s husband, Muhammad, 33, said: “Sanam was making lunch for me and our 15-month-old son. We use tomatoes almost every day so when she opened the tin she spotted something odd straight away.
“When Sanam saw the lizard she just screamed and ran upstairs. Because she’s pregnant, I think it really made her ill.”
He added: “When I looked at it I thought it was a worm at first.” Then he fished out the creature with a knife.
Muhammad said he had bought the tin as part of a multipack from Masala Bazaar, an Asian supermarket owned by Euro Foods near their family home.
He said the family had already eaten seven of the multipack’s 12 cans. “We are really worried about food poisoning,” he said. “This has really put Sanam off her food.”
Euro Foods said it had contacted its Italian supplier. “This is a major concern. We have gone back to the factory to see how something like this could have happened,” a spokesman said. “Until that happens I can’t comment any further.”
Last year a family fled their house after finding a Brazilian wandering spider in a bunch of bananas from their Waitrose delivery. And in January a woman discovered a dead mouse in bag of popcorn she had bought from Tesco.
