A woman says she “cannot look at a carrot” after finding a snail in a packet of frozen vegetables.

Katie Barnes bought the pack from her local Lidl in Edmonton, but when she and her partner Paul Taylor sat down for dinner they realised they had an unwelcome addition to their meal.

Ms Barnes, of Croyland Road, said she had not realised the snail was there until they sat down to eat and saw a shell nestled in among the veg.

She said: “Paul was physically sick when he saw it, it was horrible. It has put us right off vegetables, I cannot look at a carrot since.

“We don’t want anything to do with Lidl, it has put us right off.”

Ms Barnes said she contacted the Lidl customer service team as soon as she saw it, but was unhappy with the response and promised compensation – a £5 voucher, which she has still not received.

She said: “I was told it would be investigated after I sent them the pictures, but after a week I had heard nothing, so rung again, and it turned out they had not even seen the pictures as the attachment would not open on the email, but they hadn’t told me.

“Frankly they were really rude, I had to call them all the time, and I never got a call back, and only one email.

“It was mortifying, my partner won’t eat vegetables anymore.”

Lidl communications officer Sophie Lambert-Russell said they had initially sent out a voucher to Ms Barnes on June 16, and they had communicated with Ms Barnes on several occasions.

She said: “We were very sorry to hear of this incident and can confirm that investigation was launched as soon as our customer services team were made aware.

“We would like to reassure customers that this is an isolated incident and that we have thorough procedures in place to ensure that our products are of the highest quality.

“We apologise that the customer has not yet received this and can confirm our Customer Services team will be in touch and will send out another as a gesture of goodwill.”