What would you expect from a food retailer that mislablled something and as a result you've eaten pork when you don't eat pork?

[AccidentallyPorked]

As title really.

I am veggie (have been for about 40 years) but even if I wasn't, I wouldn't eat pork or shellfish for religious reasons.

Bought a valentine's meal as a treat with an online shop and chose the options labelled as vegetarian with a green V for each course. As it was online I didn't read the packets! We then ate it also without reading the ingredients on the packet.

Then got an email the next day saying one option had actually contained pork and been mislabelled. I was given a refund for the exact cost of the product.

I have felt slightly queasy for days whenever I think about it - obviously I know it hasn't made me ill but the thought of eating pork turns my stomach. I never knowingly have before and it's really put me off buying ready prepared food again, usually I cook from scratch but we have been so busy and couldn't afford a meal out so just thought this would be a nice treat!

Would you complain?

Herein lies the risk of buying pre-prepared meals. I can understand your discomfort because of your religion and vegetarianism, although it's interesting that the taste didn't give away the contents of the dish. As those things matter, you will have to cook from scratch if you want to be certain of what you're eating. It's the same for people with allergies. A number of years ago, there was a furore when Tesco had to admit they had been selling horse meat as beef. The public outcry was about eating horse. It should have been about inaccurate labelling.

If the supermarket hadn't told you, you would have been none the wiser so they have behaved honourably. Few organisations would volunteer to own up when they could probably get away with it. A gift token for the supermarket by way of compensation would have gone a long way - £30?

A refund
an apology
a token of compensation like a voucher

It's bad it happened, obviously, but given they can't make you un-eat the pork, I'm not sure what they could do for you other than an apology and a refund which they've already done.

What action could they take that you would feel satisfied with?

So you can’t eat a particular food not because you are allergic but because some non existent man in the sky says you can’t?
Is anyone else mystified by religion? It seems to be all sorts of strange rules or fighting people who don’t agree with you.

They did the right thing. Maybe it would have been better if they didn’t and you were none the wiser?

Mistakes happen all the time. No companies never make a mistake. Just chill it’s not the end of the world

I would expect more than the refund. A further voucher or money as a gesture to apologise. It’s very fortunate that you didn’t have an allergy rather than being vegetarian.

I would weigh up the religious or moral consequences before complaining. E.g. is it a complete sin or will I be given forgiveness.
If there wasn’t a religious element I would consider whether I had been made ill or had an allergic reaction. If a life-threatening allergy I would be angry, but I wouldn’t expect much more than apology as money can’t do anything to help any of the above situations

You got an instant refund and apology? That's great.

You don't even get told when something has undeclared gluten or has been contaminated with it, you just find out a couple of months later (as if you hadn't already known within about twenty minutes that something you ate contained poison) when there's a product recall text alert from the Food Standards Agency - if you've signed up for them, that is.

I've never received anything from any supermarket to say 'Sorry for poisoning you, here's a fiver back on your overpriced, half sized food, hope it goes some way towards paying for toilet paper used during the hours you spent sweating, crying, puking and shitting and your skin blistering and burning from Herpetiform Dermatitis whilst it simultaneously increased your risk of multiple cancers and left you feeling like crap for the next fortnight'.

Not eating meat is not always because "some non existent man in the sky says you can't" though and OP has been vegetarian for 40 years, not just for religious reasons which you rather rudely discount.

You’re not religious, so can only assume you fight with/belittle people you don’t know just for fun?

OP, at minimum they should be offering to refund the full meal. I think it’s a pretty serious mistake, and it’s obviously distressed you, so I think a gesture of goodwill would be appropriate on top. I’d tell them you intend to write to consumer affairs journalists at the Guardian and the Times.

Well, when you put it like that, it sounds a bit like Mumsnet to me.

I know that this is a serious topic but your username is making me laugh 🤭

Well that’s true the op is a vegetarian and I can see why you wouldn’t want animals to suffer so that you can eat. But to be fair she also says even if she wasn’t a vegetarian she still wouldn’t eat pork for religious reasons, so presumably okay with chicken/beef/fish?
Can you or explain to me how that makes sense, it seems totally illogical when you think about it.

So true 😁

I think they've done what they should. They've contacted you proactively and refunded.

We accidently gave pork meatballs to a Muslim child at the school where I work. The head contacted parents, who were grateful for the honesty but said no harm done. Apparently there are no religious "consequences" if you eat something inadvertently.

To claim more, legally, you'd have to prove you suffered harm. What harm did you suffer?

It is just very lucky that it was not an allergy one!
I would be content with them telling me and letting me know that they are taking measures to avoid anything further being mislabelled.

Given that they've proactively contacted you and apologized what would your complaint be?

Obviously it shouldn't have happened but they've already acknowledged that, what more do you expect

Presumably there's no way for them to contact all the customers who bought the product in the shop, if you'd done that you'd have been none the wiser

I’d expect an apology and a refund, that’s it. You’d never have known and came to no harm. It’d be different if it was an unlabelled allergen, but even then, I wouldn’t expect money…I’d want to know how they planned to prevent future mislabelling.

How long have you been vegetarian for? Because I’ve been a veggie since the early 80’s and quiche with ham or bacon etc was a regular thing! Sometimes didn’t even get a sorry.
But a refund is the correct response and a sorry. But unless the V is from the vegetarian society it isn’t worth anything.

I need to know what the dish is now that contains pork but didn't taste like pork when you were eating it.

It will have been something with gelatine?

Yeah it was pork gelatine in a dessert.

I wouldn’t expect more than they’ve offered. I appreciate you feel queasy now but the alternative was that they just didn’t tell you. They’ve apologised and refunded. It was a mistake. A bad one, and it could have had horrible consequences if you had a fatal allergy to pork gelatine, but it didn’t and our legal system isn’t based on “what ifs”.

You could email them with not so much a complaint as laying out that you understand it was an accident and appreciate they were honest about it but it's genuinely upset you as it's against your deep held principles. Nothing further to be done, but at least you've said it to them.

Reporting misleading labelling | Food Standards Agency