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A man says his mother screamed and gagged after he discovered an animal jawbone with two teeth still in place inside a bag of carrots purchased from an Auckland Woolworths.
Eric Smith took to social media to share images of the discovery last week, with people speculating that it was a mandible from a farm animal.
Speaking to the Herald, Smith said he was doing his usual grocery shop at West Auckland’s Hobsonville Woolworths about 2pm on Friday, October 18, and threw a 1.5kg bag of ”The Odd Bunch” branded carrots into his basket.
“At the checkout, neither me or the staff lady noticed anything strange,” he said.
It wasn’t until he arrived home and placed the bag of carrots on his counter that he “saw something brown” hidden in the bag.
“‘Ew, what is that? There’s something weird in here,’ I mentioned to my mother and grandmother that were nearby,” Smith said.
“I originally thought it was an old, mouldy carrot, but when I pushed it into view through the plastic I was surprised to see it was a jawbone with two teeth still in place.”
An Auckland family was shocked when they found the jaw of an unidentified animal inside a bag of carrots purchased from a Woolworths supermarket. Photo / Eric Smith
The animal mandible had two teeth still in place. Photo / Eric Smith
He said his mother was “horrified” when he showed her and proceeded to scream and make a gagging sound.
When Smith took the carrots back to Hobsonville Woolworths, he said the staff member was “quite surprised” when he handed her the bag.
“She offered me a full refund and let me take a new bag for free, but if I’m being honest I didn’t really know if I wanted another bag in case it possessed more bones,” he said.
The staff member told Smith she would show the bag to her manager.
“I hope they can track which paddock the carrots came from because someone could get really sick,” he said.
Social media users have speculated on what animal the bone may belong to, with many drawing the conclusion it was from a sheep, goat, or other farm animal.
Social media users have speculated whether the bone belongs to a sheep, goat, or some other farm animal. Photo / Eric Smith
“The bone is noticeably soil stained, so this is from an animal that died a while ago rather than one [that was] somehow killed during carrot harvesting,” one commenter, claiming to be a zooarchaeologist, said.
“It’s hard to say how old, but could potentially be archaeological given New Zealand’s long history of sheep husbandry.”
Smith believed the bone must have been mixed in during harvesting and “wasn’t detected by whatever machine was sorting the carrots”.
A Woolworths New Zealand spokesperson said it had not received any other similar complaints and believed this to be an “isolated incident”.
“We take food safety seriously and we’re currently looking into this with our grower as a matter of priority.”
