Talk About A “Hot Potato “

New Zealand’s bomb squad has been called into a chip factory after a suspicious-looking potato trundling down the production line turned out to be a grenade.

Grenades frequently pop up in potato fields in Europe, but are a highly unusual find in New Zealand.

The weapon had been sent to Auckland’s East Tamaki Mr Chips factory on Tuesday, after being dug up from a potato farm in Matamata, in the Waikato region.

The rusty grenade could easily have been mistaken for a large dirty potato, but an eagle-eyed worker spotted it before it became an unpleasant addition to a bag of hot chips.

The defence force’s explosive ordinance disposal team arrived shortly after 4am and found it was inert. The roughly 80-year-old grenade was a British-

manufactured “Mills bomb” hand grenade that was widely used in the first and second world wars, the defence force confirmed.

The Mr Chips factory’s operations manager, Roland Spitaels, told Stuff it was the first weapon discovered on the chain in the factory’s 30-year history.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/07/chip-factory-bomb-squad-potato-grenade-new-zealand

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