Arnhem man finds tarantula in packet of grapes
Arnhem man Bart van den Akker got the fright of his life when he went to get some grapes from the fridge on Saturday, only to find a tarantula in the package. The grapes were bought from Albert Heijn, who imported them from Chile, De Gelderlander reports.
"On Friday my wife bought a package of grapes a the Albert Heijn in shopping center Kronenburg. Saturday morning I took the package out of the fridge and took out a bunch of grapes to give to my son. Nothing special. Later that day I wanted to get another bunch out. Then I saw the huge tarantula," Van den Akker said to the newspaper. For a while, he just stood there. "I wasn't sure what to do. Until I thought of my neighbor, a man with an understanding of animals."
Neighbor Bart Kappen decided to take the spider in. "I've never had tarantulas, but exotic stick insects," Kappen said to the newspaper. According to him, the spider is of "good size" but still young.
A spokesperson for Albert Heijn told De Gelderlander that finding a tarantula is highly exceptional. "You don't expect to find this among the grapes," he said. "I would also be shocked, I think. Fortunately, nothing bad happened and the spider is still alive."
It is hard to determine exactly where the spider came from, and therefore where it went wrong in the supply chain, the spokesperson said. "We have three suppliers in Chile, around Santiago. We cannot fully determine which supplier it came from."
"Our suppliers harvest the grapes by hand, then they check the bunches on a conveyor for defects and strange parts," he said "We suspect that this little tarantula camouflaged well in a bunch that passed inspection, or that it crawled in among the grapes just before the container was closed."
