Swedish woman finds toad in pre-packed salad

Sofie Isaksson in Örebro, west of Stockholm, had been using leaves from a pre-packed bag of salad, purchased at the supermarket, for almost a week when she discovered it contained more than she had bargained for.

"At first I thought it was a rat so I just screamed and dropped the bag and yelled at my daughter to come check it out," Isaksson told The Local.

Instead, Isaksson uncovered a toad embedded amongst the salad leaves.

"It was pretty stiff at first, legs folded in and eyes closed, so we thought it was dead. We poked it and it started moving. I guess it was just chilled to the bones."

The stealthy amphibian had managed to avoid danger the two or three times Isaksson had picked salad leaves from the bag prior to the shocking discovery.

"It was quite a big bag so I had only taken leaves from the top layer. My dad taught me the trick to blow air into the bag to make the salad last longer," Isaksson explained.

"And then I sealed it with a rubber band."

The incident even made the crawling intruder a TV celebrity, when the hosts for a popular evening news show telephoned Isaksson to comment on the incident during their live broadcast.

“We're getting rid of it,” she said on the show, “but my daughter so wants to keep it that we're waiting a bit.”

Ted Stenshed, CEO of the company Sydgrönt that distributed the salad, told local media that although unfortunate, it’s actually a sign that their products grow in a helathy environment, since wildlife is drawn to it.

“It’s not common, but these things do happen sometimes,” Stenshed told local paper Nerikes Allehanda.

Since the whole process, from harvest to packaging, is done mechanically, it sometimes allows for hungry freeloaders to stowaway.

But apart from the bonus pet for her daughter, Isaksson will receive gift certificates from the company as compensation.