Daffodil heads and ivy leaves wins woman prize for weirdest items in freezer

A woman who kept frozen daffodil heads and ivy leaves has been announced the winner of a contest to find the most unusual objects lurking in people’s freezers.

The “Frosty or Fusty” freezer archaeology challenge aimed to discover some of the oldest and oddest items people have kept.

The competition was launched by Scottish food supplier Scotty Brand and cooking expert Suzanne Mulholland, known as the Batch Lady.

Dog chews, icing flowers from a wedding cake and containers of “unidentified frozen objects” were some of the things unearthed during the challenge.

Suzanne Mulholland Pic: Ryan Hall

But the top prize – £100 of Asda vouchers – was won by Jacqui Baker from Wilstead, Bedfordshire.

She had a collection of daffodil heads and ivy leaves she had frozen two years ago during lockdown in order to dye wool.

Ms Baker just pipped the entry from a woman who had frozen a clementine her toddler grandson had bitten. She said seeing the frozen fruit, complete with toothmarks, made her smile every time she opened the freezer, even though her grandson is now 23.

The competition was launched to highlight how batch cooking and frozen food can help families make their household budgets stretch further in the cost-of-living crisis.

These strange items have been found in freezers

A poll carried out for BBC Good Food magazine by Censuswide revealed 23 per cent of shoppers are now turning to batch cooking as a way to save money.

Molly Borys, brand manager at Scotty Brand, said: “We thought we’d get some interesting entries for this competition, but we were overwhelmed by the responses and the sheer variety of artefacts people unearthed.”

Mulholland, who has 148,000 Instagram followers, added: “As the Batch Lady I’m pretty on top of what’s in my freezer, but even I must confess there are some things in mine that are older than they probably should be – for example, I discovered some blue cheese I’d frozen last Christmas.”