Julleen Marter, 47, had been about to prepare her family a chili con carne meal, when she made a horrifying discovery.

After opening a carton of Lidl Tomato sauce and pouring the contents into a pan, she noticed some suspicious-looking grey chunks floating around on the surface.

Alarmed, she went on to cut open the rest of the package to find a strange, brain-like object at the bottom, measuring about 10 centimeters in diameter.

She had subsequently called Lidl to complain, only to have a customer's service worker laugh at her claims.

"After pouring the tomato passata in, I noticed that the consistency was not as it should be." Marter had also later noticed that the normally bright red color of the sauce turned into "a really horrible black color."

She went on to say that she did not know what the object was, if it was an animal or plant-based material, but it most closely resembles a brain in appearance.

"It's like something out of a horror movie. I was so disgusted I almost threw up."

She had been told by environmental health officials to freeze the object, and so it remains temporarily inside her freezer.

She expresses her outrage at how the customer service worker giggled, dismissing her fears by saying that it was probably just a tomato. Marter had then been asked to email them a picture of the object, but says that she has not heard back from them at all.

The mother-of-three says that she wants to stay away from Lidl for the time being. She also worries that an entire batch may have been contaminated by similar objects.

"I don't want compensation; I just feel that this has now become a public health issue."

Lidl has spoken out on the matter, saying that they were currently investigating with the supplier. A spokesman has expressed his disdain over the Lidl customer service employee laughing at a customer concern. "It's a matter we take very seriously," a spokesperson has said.

He adds that the curious brain-like substance is in the possession of the Environmental Health Office for examination, but their initial hypotheses were that it had tomato-based origins. He says that they will wait until the investigation has been completed to come to a full conclusion.