{"id":845669,"date":"2026-08-06T14:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845669\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:10:14","slug":"spider-found-alive-and-crawling-inside-a-punnet-of-strawberries-sold-at-coles-geraldton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/845669\/","title":{"rendered":"Spider found alive and crawling inside a punnet of strawberries sold at Coles Geraldton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coles in Geraldton has been caught in a web of icky proportions after one customer\u2019s quick trip to the supermarket ended up with some bread, milk and strawberries \u2014 with a side of spider.<\/p>\n

For local Anum Fatima, her regular Coles grocery shop led her to feel ill after realising there was a live spider crawling in a punnet of strawberries she bought from the Geraldton store on July 31.<\/p>\n

Ms Fatima picked the fresh strawberries straight from the hand of the produce employee in Coles as he was restocking; after she drove home, they were placed directly into the fridge.<\/p>\n

\"SpiderCamera IconSpider in punnet of strawberries purchased at Coles Geraldton. Credit: supplied<\/p>\n

An hour or two had passed when Ms Fatima went to reach for some sweet berries; she sat on the couch and enjoyed two just fine.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until she reached for the third that she saw a live black spider crawling around in the punnet, creating an array of webs.<\/p>\n

Ms Fatima began throwing up and felt sick after she noticed the spider. She said it left her \u201cnervous and vomiting\u201d, and she had to take anti-nausea medication.<\/p>\n

Her husband, Ahmed Saud, went to Coles to seek an answer and perhaps some assistance in the matter.<\/p>\n

Mr Saud claims that Coles Geraldton said they were only able to replace the strawberries but not provide a refund as it was a fresh produce item.<\/p>\n

He claimed the response from Coles was \u201cvery arrogant\u201d and that the customer service was not up to scratch, and raised the complaint further.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about the money; it\u2019s about the customer service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Saud compared it to an incident his wife had at an IGA in Geraldton in which her dress was torn in a trolley. The store gave her a voucher and offered to pay for her groceries without any request.<\/p>\n

\"SpiderCamera IconSpider in punnet of strawberries purchased at Coles Geraldton Credit: supplied<\/p>\n

When Mr Saud raised the complaint to online customer care, he said they acted like they \u201cdidn\u2019t care\u201d and offered a $10 voucher for the incident.<\/p>\n

Coles has responded to this incident, stating that they always encouraged customers to wash fresh produce before consuming.<\/p>\n

A Coles spokesperson said: \u201cFood safety and product quality are paramount at Coles. As fresh produce is grown outdoors, insects can occasionally be found in fruit and vegetables. However, this appears to be an isolated incident, and we are investigating with the supplier to understand what occurred and help prevent it from happening again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have apologised directly to the customer and provided a goodwill gesture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Fatima believed the supermarket giant should have handled the situation \u201cin an apologetic way\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coles in Geraldton has been caught in a web of icky proportions after one customer\u2019s quick trip to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,115038,45],"class_list":["post-845669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-regional-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}