Processed food has become extremely popular these days. It’s usually put together in factories and packaged well. But you have to watch out for additives, even if the label says that nothing has been added. Just ask the Australian man who recently purchased a bag of lettuce from Woolworths Supermarket and found a rare additive inside the bag: a live green frog.
The man, who lives in the southwest coastal town of Esperance, did what any of us would do: he read the product description on the bag just to make sure he had not accidentally purchased “Frog ‘n’ Lettuce.” But the description did not mention “frog” anywhere, nor did it say “This product was processed in a facility that also processes frogs.” It did, however, say “Australian grown,” which meant that the frog was at least a native species. (Natives are much safer than immigrants. Just ask Donald Trump.)
Actually, what the man did was say to one of his flatmates: “Bro, there’s a frog in the lettuce.” He was very casual about it, which surprised his two roommates, Laura Jones and Billie Le Pine. Australia has 230 species of frog, so perhaps the man is just used to seeing them everywhere.
Jones and Le Pine described the experience during an interview on ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Le Pine said the frog was as large as the palm of his hand.
“It’s quite a decent-sized frog for a big adventure,” he said. “It would have probably come from the east. Most of our vegetables come from eastern Australia to Esperance. The bag of lettuce does have holes in it to keep the produce fresh, so he had a snack and some air on his way over.”
If you’ve ever wondered what the holes in the bag are for, now you know. They keep everything looking fresh and alive. But the frog probably wasn’t too happy traveling with lettuce. Frogs are carnivores. They do not eat lettuce, unless the lettuce tries to run away. Frogs love to eat insects, as well as any other live prey that fits in their mouths, including mice, birds and even other frogs. That’s partly why you will never find two frogs in a bag of lettuce.
Woolworths, for its part, issued a statement saying that an investigation is underway to find out how a bag of lettuce with a frog was sold to a customer without an extra charge.
No, they didn’t say that. They merely stated that they were investigating the incident and that it was “an isolated event with no other reported cases.” In other words, “We reviewed customer complaints about lettuce, but nothing jumped out.”
If you’re wondering what happened to the frog, you’ll be glad to know that it didn’t get eaten. Frogs are a delicacy in many parts of the world, but thankfully for this frog, the bag of lettuce was not purchased by Bistro Louis, the French restaurant in Esperance.
The flatmates released Greg (yes, they gave it a name) into a local dam, where it is enjoying its freedom and vowing to stay away from lettuce farms.
It’s worth noting that the frog is not the first live animal to make a trip inside a food package to a customer’s home. In 2023, a New Delhi man ordered a loaf of bread through one of those ultra-fast grocery delivery services and was pleased to receive his bread within 10 minutes, but not so pleased to also receive a live rat.
“If 10 minutes delivery has such baggage, I would rather wait for a few hours,” the man wrote on social media. In 2019, a woman in Wisconsin found a live frog inside a plastic container of lettuce from a grocery store.
“This is in a box of lettuce that’s supposed to be triple-washed and organic and healthy,” the woman complained to local TV station WTMJ. The lettuce was certainly triple-washed and healthy, but so was the frog.
