diff --git a/src/caosadvancedtools/cfoods/h5.py b/src/caosadvancedtools/cfoods/h5.py
index 543ac327871fb7f5c79d68e638af1a47b62d83f6..33f8751048b8d4f7a40b8fdb10e1ad8246177029 100644
--- a/src/caosadvancedtools/cfoods/h5.py
+++ b/src/caosadvancedtools/cfoods/h5.py
@@ -85,13 +85,13 @@ def h5_attr_to_property(val):
         if isinstance(val, np.ndarray):
             if val.ndim > 1:
                 return None, None
-
-            if val.ndim == 0:
-                raise NotImplementedError(
-                    "Code assumes that scalar values "
-                    "will not be given as np.ndarray objects")
-            val = list(val)
+        # The tolist method is on both numpy.ndarray and numpy.generic
+        # and properly converts scalars (including 0-dimensional
+        # numpy.ndarray) to Python scalars and 1D arrays to lists of
+        # Python scalars.
+        if val.ndim != 0:
             dtype = db.LIST(dtype)
+        val = val.tolist()
 
         # TODO this can eventually be removed