to have complained? WARNING - Supermarket related

[featherbag]

I went to my local Sainsbury's today, I wanted some fresh fish from the fish counter. The member of staff serving on that counter was also covering the fresh meat counter. I stood and waited for her to finish serving another customer at the meat counter. After handling raw meat, she rinsed her hands briefly under a tap, then dried them. No soap. When she asked what I wanted, I made my excuses and left. WIBU to email and complain about this as soon as I got home? I don't particularly want to be served by someone who can't even wash their hands properly, who knows how many different kinds of bacteria were living on her hands, fed by the water she gave them every time she went from one counter to the other?!

I said MAY have been sore.

Jeez

yanbu. I might eat raw fish of some types and not of others and the same with meat. She is allowing everything to come into contact with the bugs from everything else. So someone could easily get food poisoning. Even if you think eating raw fish/meat is too extreme, the same storage conditions dont apply to the two and so it could still lead to problems even if you are cooking the food.

My pet hate is people handling money and then food...although I admit I may do the same myself, it is at least my decision....

Might be Managers fault is what i mean. If she refused to serve the customers she might lose her job so to continue serving might have been the only option. I'm not making excuses just suggestions as to why. I would have walked away too.

Manager might not have ordered enough gloves, soap etc If so he will be found out to be ncompetant.

Goalweight I apologise, I've just re-read my post to you and it does sound snippy, that was not intentional!

don't t hey pick the items up with those plastic sheets though? they do at our local store so they never actually touch the food.

so washing the hands in between is an adequate precaution if that is the case.

:) thanks feather

I just mean could be shortage of supplies aswell as a hygiene issue, yuck :)

But she didn't wash her hands Valar , that's the problem! A quick splash of water isn't washing!

ahh right yes i see now.

sorry, skim read slightly

Wouldn't cooking the fish kill any germs on it though?

I have never seen anyone in our Sainsburys (or any other shop) handling raw meat or fish without tongs or turning a plastic bag inside out or wearing gloves. But I have to say I always buy the pre-packed stuff and am blissfully unaware of how it's handled.

It might be a nurse thing OP. I went to another supermarket Morrisons a while ago and the youth on the cooked meat section was serving while he was wearing one of those pointless grubby beige tubigrip things over one wrist and hand.

I didn't buy anything, and I had a polite word with the manager over the section. She said it was ok because he was only picking the meat up with the other hand. I pointed out he still needed to be washing his hands frequently and he clearly wasn't doing this.

I sneaked back later and he had been moved (not permanently!) YANBU to mention it, YABU to be too chicken to mention it at the time

Would fish not be cooked so killing off bacteria? Not excusing her but don't see why you would be worried about food poisoning.

As an aside, it was common when I moved to Germany to have uncooked hams and salami side by side with the cooked hams - still done like this where I shop in Switzerkand when I think about it. They were most amused when I commented on it. Found it weird that we Brits were concerned.

Fair enough, I accept the judgement of MN - IANBU to complain, but IWBU not to do so at the time. Next time something like this happens I will attempt to grow a pair and say something there and then!

She really shouldn't be touching anything with her bare hands. Gloves, tongs, bags turned inside out or those little plastic sheets they put things on to be weighed should be used so bare hands never touch meat/fish.

She should not be touching anything with her bare hands, but properly washed hands are better/cleaner/safer then gloves any day I teach HACCP and food safety but we encourage for customers peace of mind that they use gloves, But they must wash hands and use tongs or spoons also. If there is no soap in dispenser they are in a super market and could get a bottle, I would write to management so they can retrain staff

They've got a barrier in between the fish counter and the meat counter in my Sainsbury's, so members of staff cannot serve both, even if they were short-staffed. And quite right too. The risk of contamination and food poisoning is very real and can make people very ill - can even be fatal. You were not being unreasonable to complain at all, and may in fact have stopped people getting ill (obviously the delay isn't ideal but I can see why confrontation in person might be awkward).

My mum complained years ago about staff in Morrisons serving bacon and then serving the next person cheese. I'm assuming there can't have been hand washing in between or she wouldn't have been bothered. The manager changed practice so there were 2 seperate people - one for cheese and the other for the sausages/bacon.

Now that makes sense Viva, but meat to fish? I must be missing something, but surely cooking fish will kill the bacteria?

OP is getting a lot of flack for not saying something there and then. I think it's always better to complain 'formally' e.g. in writing to head office, or at least to find a manager or supervisor if you want to complain there and then. IMO frontline staff don't get paid enough to have to deal with complaints, plus if you'd said something to her the best you'd have got would have been that she washed her hands properly. Not that that's a bad thing, but if you go to a manager then hopefully they'll do some re-training or reiterate the H&S policies to all staff, rather than one member of staff being singled out.

I always make this point in complaints (not that I write that many well OK I do ). I hope that if enough customers explicitly say that problems on the shop floor/front line are down to managerial problems and that they don't want individual members of frontline staff blamed or singled out, managers will take note.

Was she not going to pick up the fish with the plastic sheets that they get put into inside the bag? Would anyone really touch raw fish with bare hands unless for food preparation reasons? Makes me feel icky just thinking about it!

wouldn't cooking the fish kill off any bateria ?????

YABU on the basis that I worked behinds the scenes of the fresh food counters of a supermarket and in my experience what she did is the least of your concerns.

I have to say that I wouldn't have been bothered myself but then I am a bit lax about hygeine and have never had food poisening in my life

The fish and meat are next to each other in both my local Sainsburys and Waitrose. I'm not sure I've ever noticed the people behind the counter washing their hands between sections. I have never worried about it either. Next time I will closely observe and look to see if they are wearing gloves, using plastic sheets to pick up stuff etc.. I'm still not sure it will bother me though.

When I was a girl the butcher would stand and do amazing things with rabbits and huge pieces of meat in front of you and there was sawdust on the floor - never saw him do more than wipe his hands on a cloth or his apron between customers though.

food poisoning is not trivial

this is the kind of thing poor food hygiene can cause - not nice at all