But Shona Burnie was gutted when Gary Searle insisted that he hadn’t put it there.

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The couple are now trying to find out who owns the silver and diamond engagement ring — despite Gary hoping to keep it and then pop the question for real.

Cleaning firm boss Shona, 43, almost cracked her tooth when she bit down on the ring after spreading peanut butter on her toast.

She said: “It was Valentine’s Day and I thought he had been a twit and put it in the peanut butter.

“I said, ‘You haven’t, have you?’ and he was saying, ‘No, I haven’t, really’.

“I thought, ‘He flipping well has’ and was waiting all day for him to come clean and propose.

“It’s such a far-fetched thing to happen — especially on Valentine’s Day — I thought he was definitely going to propose.

“I was left feeling a bit resentful and it hurt my pride.

“I’ve been ready and waiting for him to propose for ages.

“I’m living in sin!

“Gary is nutty.

“That’s why I thought it was definitely him but it wasn’t.”

Gary, 52, insisted: “I’m a traditionalist and I haven’t even asked her dad yet.

“For a second, I almost got on my knee and proposed but I couldn’t do it because I hadn’t bought it for her.”

The pair, from Tavistock, Devon, think the ring must have fallen into the £4 pot of salted caramel spread on the factory production line.

Gary reckoned: “I’m going to have to ask her to marry me now.

“If no one claims the ring, we can use it and it’s got a nice story — and we’ll save a few quid.”

But Shona said: “It belongs to someone else.

“We need to get it back to its owner.”

Co Durham-based firm ManiLife has sent a goodie bag to Shona and Gary.

Founder Stu Macdonald said: “A customer discovering an engagement ring in a jar of our peanut butter and on Valentine’s Day is definitely a first for us.

“We always uphold the highest degree of health and safety within our production facility.

“While it is unlikely the ring will have entered the jar at our production site, we are still investigating how it came to be there and have sent Gary and Shona some products to hopefully make up for the shock.”