WTF: man finds tarantula on Albert Heijn fruit!
In the category: you never know what might happen! A man from Arnhem discovered a… tarantula (!) in a container of grapes that his wife had bought at Albert Heijn the day before. When he wanted to snack on a tasty bunch of grapes once they were home, he came across the spider. Great if your name is Freek Vonk, but otherwise… absolutely terrifying!
His wife had bought a container of grapes at Albert Heijn the previous Friday. “On Saturday morning I took the container out of the fridge and removed a bunch of grapes to give to my son. Nothing unusual. Later that day I wanted to take out another bunch. That’s when I saw the enormous tarantula. Of course I was extremely startled,” Bart van den Akker told De Gelderlander. The spider was barely noticeable among the grapes because of its camouflage.
From Chile
Bart was briefly rooted to the spot in shock, but then called on the neighbour, “a man who knows about animals”, according to Bart. The neighbour determined that it was a relatively young Chilean tarantula. “Its body is the shape of two grapes. An adult spider is much larger, about the size of a palm.”
Highly exceptional
Albert Heijn spokesperson Ronald van der Aart calls the discovery highly exceptional, but cannot say what went wrong. “Our suppliers harvest the grapes by hand; they are trimmed to size so that 500 grams of grapes fit in a container. We suspect that the tarantula, well camouflaged in a bunch, managed to pass the inspection.”
The Van den Akker family will receive a new container of grapes from the supermarket chain and “a nice gift to help them recover from the fright”. The spider has since found a home with the neighbour.
Among the bananas
This is not the first time a tarantula has turned up in a supermarket, by the way. Years ago, a tarantula was wandering around among the bread rolls and currant buns at an Albert Heijn in Scheveningen. It had probably travelled there with the bananas…
