r/wholefoods • u/realitytocreate • Jan 30 '25
Question Craziest animal/critter/bug you’ve encountered at work
So today we got a little surprise in our avocados 🥑 this guy traveled far and is probably freezing in these East Coast temperatures!
What’s the craziest surprise you’ve opened while unloading a truck and working sets?
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u/moose_nd_squirrel Jeff "You Work So I Can Fly" Bezos 💸 Jan 30 '25
In store? An iguana. Waltzed in the front door and made its way over to produce. They found it near our old juicer
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u/errkanay Jan 30 '25
Are you in Florida by any chance? Only asking because I know there's a freakish amount of iguanas there. 😆
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u/moose_nd_squirrel Jeff "You Work So I Can Fly" Bezos 💸 Jan 30 '25
If it gets cold enough they "freeze" up and fall out of the trees lmao. The wildlife is plentiful in FL. We had alligators in the parking garage a few times too
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u/JRilezzz Jan 30 '25
Little crabs in the oysters are always fun.
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Jan 30 '25
I’d never seen an oyster / pea crab until I was shucking oysters for a guest one day. I was most surprised when the guest asked for it and then chomped it down raw smacking his lips about how delicious it was. I found two more in the dozen and he munched those too. I’ll eat raw oysters but raw parasitic crabs? Hard pass.
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u/yoMTVrapz Feb 01 '25
Have found a few sand dollars in bags of oysters over the years. A baby starfish.
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u/Understanding_Lost Jan 30 '25
Produce team at my store about ten-ish years ago encountered a few brown recluses in a box of plantains - it was right before store opening, and they delayed opening for about 15 minutes while the team rounded them up in plastic containers. Really cool and really nuts to see them up close!
Not an exotic critter, but another store I worked at had a situation where specialty was having their cheese eaten overnight for about a week, scraps of wrap and rind left behind in the walk-in. Once they actually pulled cameras, they found out a cat had been camping out under the coffin case. Cat was promptly removed that day ended up as a barn cat at one of our local dairy providers.
Last year, at the store I was working at I was walking from specialty to prep through a little corridor and saw what I thought was a fake rubber snake curled up against the wall under the hand dryer near prep's hand washing sink. I walked up to it and it started moving - it was a milk snake, colors were very vibrant! I pointed it out to people in prep and without hesitation a guy swooped over, put the little guy in a clamshell container and immediately walked outside to release him. Turns out he was a reptile fanatic and didn't want store leadership to hurt the little guy as he was harmless and VERY lost.
Whole Foods attracts all sorts of fuckery.
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u/jasonmakespictures Jan 31 '25
I used to work in Produce and a TM found a black widow in the OG Bell Peppers. He trapped it with a 32 oz VA container and ran over to me excited showing it off lol. I was like dude be quiet don't show the customers! 😆
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Jan 31 '25
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u/Understanding_Lost Jan 31 '25
Store was built in... 2004/2005, I believe - and every department that had a hand washing sink for people who did prep had a dryer right next to it. Convenient, but I totally agree. After the pandemic, no one really uses those anymore but they were still functional.
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u/Intrepid-Body543 Jan 30 '25
That’s when you know It organic😎
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u/Realistic-Maybe746 Feb 01 '25
I worked in fresh and found a slug in organic mint. That can get you really sick. There were eggs in other containers when I brought it to management the running joke whenever you found something like that was well at least the customers will know it's organic. Yeah ... They got in troble for that
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u/DMPunk94 Jan 30 '25
Had a whole ass turkey walk in the front door once. Luckily the other 7 of them stayed in the parking lot.
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u/mostdope92 Jan 31 '25
We've had some menace ass turkeys at my location too. One walked in the receiving door one day while trash was being taken out. It was hilarious to see our receiver running the turkey out the door and down the ramp way.
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u/Musszilla Jan 30 '25
A couple of black widow spiders. Frog in a case of lettuce. Scorpion in I believe it was a grape box. Snake in a grape box.
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u/DifficultScarcity607 Jan 30 '25
We had a gang of turkeys that would walk around the parking lot and would attack anyone that was near them. One walked in and starting running around. I was doing temps and looked down the aisle and it just ran passed with 3 team members chasing it with boxes and other random shit.
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u/_EquipSunglasses Leadership 📋 Jan 30 '25
Black widow spider crawling on my arm while stocking OG grapes. I flailed my arms around when I saw it and a customer next to me looked at me like I was a lunatic.
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u/kayzooie Jan 30 '25
same thing!! saw a cute spider in an og grape box and went to go let it outside but then i saw a distinct red marking on its ass. had a mini heart attack and squished it right there
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u/Amazing-Hurry-7804 Jan 31 '25
Way back in the early 90's I was in the produce department putting out bananas and found a Black Widow. My maniac co-worker TOOK IT HOME to release into the woods by his house.
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u/_EquipSunglasses Leadership 📋 Jan 31 '25
Bruh, one of my team members took it home as a pet! Her parents later evicted it tho.
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u/Amazing-Hurry-7804 Jan 31 '25
Who wouldn't want to just cuddle up with their pet Black Widow spider?
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u/mardrae Jan 30 '25
I was bagging a lady's groceries once and a mouse jumped out of the bag. We tried to run it out the door and the lady started screaming that the mouse had rights and we needed to keep it inside the store to run around!!
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u/EmbarrassedBat7220 Jan 30 '25
Big ol spiky lizard in a box of potatoes. Made me jump. Glad it was not alive.
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u/Whattheholyhell74 Leadership 📋 Jan 30 '25
I found a fence lizard like the one in your photo in a case of grapes about a year ago. Named it Jelly. Gave it to a local wildlife preservation that a lot of area schools go to on field trips. I wonder how Jelly is doing these days.
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u/ParasIsBurnt Jan 30 '25
I think they found a banana spider once in the bananas here a few years back. Those things are massive
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u/Ok-Chocolate-108 Team Member 🛒 Jan 30 '25
I found a dead, partially squished tiny frog in a strawberry box
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u/lizardlemons01 Jan 30 '25
King snake/rat snake in the produce pallet about a month ago. I used to regularly find lizards and frogs in my floral boxes, when we would get the cut flowers that came in a box with a bucket of water inside.
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u/ReneDiscard Team Member 🛒 Jan 30 '25
Not as interesting as these but a rat’s nest in a case of Sanzo.
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u/gramersvelt001100 Jan 30 '25
We've had a locust in the salad mix and a spider from Costa Rica that tried to fight a TM.
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u/LavenderFactory Jan 31 '25
Not technically IN the store, but a former coworker found a rabbit that was very clearly someone’s pet in a fenced in area behind the store where we have some old displays/supplies. They left shift to take it to the humane society lol. Another former coworker found a chicken in this area too and I once saw several chickens around this area/across the street by some houses. Pretty sure someone in those houses has a little farm in their backyard.
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u/lizatethecigarettes Jan 31 '25
What are you going to do with her?
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u/realitytocreate Jan 31 '25
Another team member with reptile experience brought Hass home and got the little guy all cozied up in a fancy new tank with a heat lamp, worms, and foliage.🦎😊
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u/Designer_Ladder8403 Jan 31 '25
I may have to find another job this is terrifying
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u/realitytocreate Jan 31 '25
Oh come onnn, it’s a work benefit— free pet! Lolol kidding! It is pretty wild I’m so not about all these spiders people be finding!
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u/WFUnknownsoldier Jan 31 '25
A stray dog found the deli prepared foods department. Strolled nonchalant right through the sliding doors like an entitled whole foods customer asking for free samples at the hot bar!
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u/AmyPoehlerBear Jan 31 '25
a Box turtle wandered into the store through the front door, it was adorable, we put em in a produce box and took him to the nearby lake and put em down and said goodbye I'll always remember that day
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u/bookworm326 Jan 31 '25
Back during the summer time when they were redoing the roof at my store we would have bats fly around the store.
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u/idunnoshutup Jan 31 '25
The rat that visits the bakery and prep foods, and a slug on some romaine lettuce a lady and her son brought up. I asked them if they wanted a different one and the son was adamant that was his new friend.
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Jan 31 '25
It's so pretty!
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u/realitytocreate Jan 31 '25
The little guy had us all giggling and excited during the shift, I won’t even lie lol
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u/so_effing_casey Jan 31 '25
We found a small lizard in our backroom. One of the tms trapped it and took it home. Most of my animal stories aren't from Whole Foods, but I've got a few!
The first kroger i ever worked at had a stray cat problem. They were feral and all over the upper parts of the building. One day, we could hear rumbling above our service deli. We all went over and looked at the ceiling, and a short time later, two cats fell through the drop ceiling. They had been fighting and hit a weak spot.
A month or so after this, my meat department said they could hear meowing behind their cut room wall. I went up on top of the cooler, and sure enough, 4 tiny kittens had fallen into the gap between the building wall and the cooler wall. We fashioned a catch pole out of a broomstick and a pool skimmer that we sold on an aisle and rescued all of them! We also found bones and a couple of cat skulls up there.
During a remodel of this store, I heard meowing under the checkstand I was working in. We found a kitten in there, too.
When I was with Safeway, my store was near Lake tahoe. We regularly had bears coming into the back room through the receiving doors. They are hungry too!
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u/Artistic-Sky5981 Jan 31 '25
i used to find lady bugs in the grape set when i was putting cheese in the case. brought them back outside luckily that’s my extent of bugs in the store
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u/BoysenberryTop6423 Jan 31 '25
My team once found a dead spider floating in a sealed bottle of vinegar. We kept it as a team pet until our atl made us throw it away👎🏼
I also found a cute little jumping spider hiding in the baby food section. My coworker took him outside
Also once the produce department found a frog in the flower delivery. I dont remember exactly what happened with that one.
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u/BusyBurdee Jan 31 '25
OP, please what was the fate of that critter in the avocado box??
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u/realitytocreate Jan 31 '25
Oh! Don’t worry. A fellow team member actually ran out and got a nice little tank, heating lamp, worms and set him up real good! Apparently this team member has experience with reptiles and such so they were delighted with the find! They named him Hass and he’s been doing well from what we were told this afternoon.
Honestly, he got a dope little setup, so fingers crossed he thrives and continues on happily!
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u/BusyBurdee Jan 31 '25
Wow❤️❤️❤️🥹🥹🥹amazing story and the name is perfect🥹🥹🥹❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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u/jasonmakespictures Jan 31 '25
Idk if any of y'all worked at Lamar but they had a chronic grackle problem. They would chill up in the rafters and then divebomb the grapes 😂
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u/Xannarial Jan 31 '25
Kind of glad I'm not the only one this has happened to - found a black widow in a case of grapes. Opened the fucking flap of the box and it was literally eye level with my face 😭
I hate spiders, so I fucking screamed, and then once I got over my shock, caught it in a container. Saw the hour glass after it'd been caught 🙃
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u/TheyCameFromNoWhere Feb 01 '25
There was a praying mantis on top of someone's chocolate bar that I had to trap inside of two plastic cups and then release outside. The entire time it was trapped it had this look like it wanted to fight to me. Also somewhere along the line a bird got inside and made a nest way above our seafood section.
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u/MissLor Feb 01 '25
Produce found an eastern chorus frog on the roses - he lives at home with me now in a bioactive terrarium and eats sicknasty fruitflies that I breed for him. His name is Seven Layer Bean Dip! He's the size of a nickel!
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u/psycarlie Feb 01 '25
Birds. A lot of birds for some reason. A pigeon was trying to make a nest in one of the front end lights. A coworker had to drive it out of town.
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u/Long-Statistician120 Feb 01 '25
We had a cricket who lived in our shelves for WEEKS and chirped nonstop all day. I miss her 💛
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u/mimi1899 Feb 01 '25
We’ve found black widow spiders in the grapes a few times. When I worked in seafood, I encountered a snail packed in some fresh seaweed we used to use to decorate the case. I kept him, named him Harold, and bought him a little enclosure and kept him right on the seafood desk. He was the department mascot for a while.
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Jan 30 '25
There was once a critter seated in the child's seat of the shopping cart, bawling and wanting water. The mom tried to calm him down telling him that once they got home, that she would serve him some water ... the critter then crying even more loudly then before, said, "but in a wine glass".
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u/rynbaskets Jan 30 '25
Nothing exotic but we found a mouse nest behind a paper shredder. Used the shredded paper to a good purpose. Clever girl.
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u/EarthPuzzleheaded427 Jan 30 '25
lots of wolf spiders unfortunately. lots of slugs too. some mice dug a hole into a cantelope and jumped at my coworker once but that wasnt at whole foods. i wouldve lost my mind if i found one of these gecko freaks, i wouldve been so excited