MORRISVILLE, Pa., Nov. 12 (UPI) — A Pennsylvania grocery store said it is investigating what happened after a couple discovered a potentially venomous black widow spider in their organic grapes.
Amy Reed and Hooman Noorchashm said they bought the grapes last week at BJ’s Wholesale Club in Langhorne and returned to their home in Morrisville, where they discovered the spider hiding among the fruit.
“It was this black spider that kind of crawled up from inside the grapes. I was like ‘oh, that’s just disgusting.’ I could’ve eaten that spider,” Reed told WPVI-TV.
Noorchashm said he initially thought Reed was overreacting to the spider.
“I’ll be honest,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I would have just squished the spider and thrown it out.”
However, he changed his tune after Reed discovered the identity of the spider’s species.
“I just grabbed it with a pair of pliers, one of its legs, and I missed it the first time. It fell onto its back and that’s when you could see the little red hourglass. I was like ‘you’ve got to be kidding me,” Reed said.
Reed said she put the spider in a plastic bag and saved it in her freezer.
BJ’s Wholesale Club officials said in statement they are investigating the discovery.
“We have inspected all other grapes and discovered no spiders or other insects,” the statement said, apparently mistaking arachnids for insects. “We are taking this matter extremely seriously and working with our vendor to take appropriate measures.”
Welch’s Organic Grapes, the distributor of the grapes, contacted Reed to apologize and explained the grapes are at risk of arachnid and insect stowaways because no pesticides are used in their production.
Only female black widows are venomous, but they appear identical to the males on the surface.
“My husband and I are both physicians and if it had bit me — I had lung surgery a week ago — if all of sudden, I couldn’t breathe and had chest pain, like 100 things could be causing that, none of those are a black widow spider bite,” Reed said.
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