You never know what you might get the next time you reach into a container of trail mix. Peanut…raisin…dried apricot…sunflower seed…dried gecko. AHHH!!! DRIED GECKO!
When a Minnesota woman found a dried gecko in her can of Planters trail mix, she contacted parent company Kraft. Their offer? Some coupons (good) and to put her on their promotional e-mail list (huh?).
She also contacted the FDA, which can’t take much action since the critter didn’t make anyone sick. “I think that my chances of winning the lottery are better than finding a dead gecko in my food,” the woman noted. Let’s hope so.
Woman Finds Dried Gecko In Can Of Nuts [WCCO] (Thanks, Ashley!)
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Better than finding a live gecko!
Or a half of one!!!
They should’ve at least refunded her the cost of the gecko I mean nuts…
Nutritious! Gecko meat is prized for its curative properties. When Platers said “Antioxidant Mix,” they weren’t kidding.
GEICO is taking this advertising stuff too far…
At least it wasn’t caveman hair…
Or Flo.
She’s still hungry, but she did save a bundle on her car insurance.
Ooooh, I hope this means the next can of nuts will have some piggy in it then.
but how did it taste? incomplete reportage.
Sounds like she was looking for a payday. Problem is geckos are harmless, likely delicious, and totally cute. People get money when they find, like, a whole rat in their chili–not when a cute snuggly kitten rubs up against their leg. I’m sayin’ the gecko is more like the kitten than the rat.
It’s a zen thing, like “how many babies fit in the tire?”
Geckos and kittens are both cute, but I wouldn’t want to find a dead kitten in my snack mix either.
you obviously missed my point. it would be a “dried” dead kitten.
Oh, well then, as long as it’s dried out.
He’s to hoping it’s the Geico gecko. Just…go away.
It seems like companies are getting really stingy in compensating customers who wind up with defective food products. I wonder if more people are trying to scam manufacturers today?
Granted, it was probably about 20 or 30 years ago but my family was unlucky enough to find (over the course of about 5 or 10 years)…
- Broken glass in a bag of Circus Peanuts
- Dead larvae in a Whatchamacallit (sp?) candy bar
- Metal shavings in ice cream from Kings
- Rancid meat in a Bob’s Big Boy hamburger
In every instance, we got very apologetic phone calls from very high level employees at the corporate offices. We also got a ridiculous amount of free food, as well as follow up calls over the course of the next several months.
My guess is that manufacturers have scaled back on their generosity as the frequency and intensity of consumer complaints, legit and otherwise, have gone up. Lots of people think they’ve hit the jackpot when they open a tainted food or drink, apparently not realizing that there’s no big payout unless someone eats the stuff and suffers some ill effects.
Eh, no bigs. Geckos die under our furniture all the time, then the ants strip everything but skin and bones, and one time I found my then-eight-month-old chewing on one of the desiccated carcasses. (She must have worked very hard to get it out from way under her dresser.) Good thing she’s the third so I could shrug it off—had she been the first kid I probably would have had her at the ER begging to have her stomach pumped.
He’s kinda cute.
Free protein!
Was he the stunt double for the Geico gecko?
Was he the stunt double for the Geico gecko?
“She also contacted the FDA, which can’t take much action since the critter didn’t make anyone sick.”
The obvious next move is to eat the gecko. Sorry, woman from Minnesota, but you have to.
So THAT’S where the Geico gecko has been hiding….
gross, but harmless.
“I think that my chances of winning the lottery are better than finding a dead gecko in my food”
No, the lottery is still less likely to be won.
Dead Gecko?! That’s nuts.
Insert insurance commercial joke here
It’s always fun to learn where your food comes from. In this case, outside.
Seriously, they didn’t send her a free can of trail mix in response? Coupons might save her money (depending on whether the coupons were for anything useful), but come on. The whole reason companies print coupons in the first place is because they can still make money off of them.
And mass produced food is STILL The way to go?
Come On People.
Dried Geckos, Rats, and Insects! Now Free with Purchase!!
faster/more profitiable alternative you’re suggesting is?
Or you just wanted to mock something without adding anything of your own?
Bleah!
I probably would have just taken it back to the store and got my money back. You’re not going to get a payout from something like this, lady. It’s gross, but there was no harm done.
I guess someone was not happy with their car insurance.
Really?
She *did* call it right: “I think that my chances of winning the lottery are better than finding a dead gecko in my food,” the woman noted. So instead of their response being acceptable, Planters needs to be investigated by the FDA for shoddy factory practices? Because of a …what? 1 in 50 million chance?…..Products containing real produce, including dried fruit and nuts like trail mix, will *always* run the risk of having critters in it. Guess she’s just mad it wasn’t the lottery.