To think that response from Sainsbury's is bizarre and cheeky?

[Pyjamaramadrama]

Earlier in the week I took ds to a nice park which is about an hour away. I stopped at the Sainsburys nearby the park to grab some lunch as I hadn't prepared anything.

I bought a couple of pastas from the sandwich section, some scotch eggs from the fridge, strawberries and bottles of water. I actually only picked up the scotch eggs as ds wanted a boiled egg and I hadn't made any lunch, he doesn't even eat the outside weird as that may be.

Anyway boiling hot day, got to the park, opened the eggs to find the egg in the middle was frozen solid with a good 3mm coating of ice around it. As the packaging says do not freeze I assume it's either a health risk or would taste vile after being frozen.

I emailed Sainsburys when I got home that evening and the following day the emailed back asking which store it was, I'd already told them this but replies saying again. Within 10 minutes they'd emailed me back saying that basically, they didn't know how this had happened but they'd had no other complaints, he'd phoned the store and their fridges were working fine so there's no problem, but they'd send me a £5 goodwill voucher. I emailed back saying that I wasn't after a freebie but was genuinely concerned that the fridges may be freezing items or things were being frozen before being refrigerated. The response I got back was along the lines of 'ok fine we won't sent you a voucher and not to worry as customers are their first priority and their fridges are fine.

Tigger the OP says sainsburys responded within 10 minutes. That doesn't strike me as a great deal of time for them to contact the store and properly check the fridges are operating properly

Agree that 10 minutes wouldn't be enough to do dismantle fridges in question and examine that every part is working properly such that to enable themselves to give a proper certification or a thoroughly qualified opinion but I think it would be sufficient to have a quick walk around the fridge area and see if anything appears to be wrong with other refrigerated food, which is probably what they've done.

In any case, if the response didn't seem satisfactory for one reason or another, OP can still make a different complaint about the service but to say that 10 minutes isn't enough to check something can be seen as quite subjective.

Honestly what goes on in supermarkets is best not known about.

I work in a small convenience version of a larger supermarket chain.

I've experienced:

Too much milk delivered one day but nowhere to store it so it stayed outside on a warm day for hours until there was room in the shop. I kicked off saying I wouldn't sell it but when I was back in the next day someone else had put them on sale. About 10 bottles were returned by customers.

The main freezer broke down one night after a big delivery so it was full of high cost stuff. The manager just got it working again and re-froze the stuff. when I found out I called environmental health anonymously.

The ice cream freezer struggles to maintain temperature so often the top layer of ice lollies start to melt. If I know about it I take them out and put them in a back freezer ready to be wasted. On more than one occasion the manager has put these back on sale.

I try not to think about what might have happened to the food I've bought from supermarkets.

I used to work in CS, and to be honest, there's not much more you can do. If a store assistant doesn't do anything more than give you this info over the phone, then that's all there is to pass on.

OP, you'll have been offered a voucher because the large majority are after money. I know you aren't, but sadly that's the only thing that makes some people happy. I used to deal with complaints, and tried to properly resolve them, and 9 times out of 10 would receive a reply along the lines of "Sorry isn't enough, I don't care that you're looking into it, I demand compensation", or even as much as "To be honest, I was looking for a voucher, not a resolution".

It's more about closing issues and making targets, I guess.

What exactly did you want them to do?

You drew something to their attention, they offered a £5 voucher in return for your edible scotch egg and presumably they had the ball in their court to make all checks necessary. Why couldn't you just have left it there?

I have had the prblem of things freezing if they have been touching the back of the fridge. It happened this week with coleslaw and some garlic roule but were ok once defrosted.

Just found this on the River Cottage forum about why you shouldn't freeze scotch eggs:

"I would not recommend this as when whole hard-boiled eggs are frozen the yolk by nature will become gelatinous and the whites become tough and watery. Upon defrosting the water content will tend to exude into the sausagemeat and generally results in a substandard product."

So it seems that it won't kill you but will just ruin the product.

I don't really see what else Sainsbury's could have done under the circumstances. Although they should have still sent you the voucher anyway. Bit odd of them to do that.

Sorry bit odd of them to withdraw the voucher

But if it had been twice frozen as people had suggested? I thought that was a no no for most things let alone meat and eggs. Seems I can be a hell of a lot more cavalier

To try to find out how they came to be frozen, which I don't believe they did in 10 minutes.

Twice frozen is a health risk? I don't know, I always thought you shouldn't refreeze once defrosted.

Thisvehicleisreversing I can believe that, someone I know is a refrigeration engineer and the stories he could tell.

It does sound as though your particular scotch eggs were put too close to the actual back 'wall' of the fridge. Maybe even touching it. That could possibly cause them to freeze - or at least to not defrost, if delivered frozen.

I think the £5 voucher offered was adequate & I don't think it necessarily points to a problem with the fridge. Maybe staff just need to be reminded that goods shouldn't actually be touching the back of it. (They also need to do this in our local Tesco - there's always a random yoghurt packet covered in ice, welded to the pack of the fridge).

That said, I would have very probably been annoyed if the e-mail replies sounded snippy. I'm not sure if the replies in your OP are word for word or not, but it does sound rather "well, if you don't want the voucher piss off then". I don't think they've done or said anything wrong or lacking - but is it maybe the way it was said that's left you feeling a bit ?

You said it was at the back of the fridge, well that is where they put the newest items, so may well have only been delivered to the store that day.
If they had got frozen in transit, that's why it said not to freeze, as a customer freezing them would mean they'd been frozen twice. I know that in the home, items at the back of the fridge may be older than items at the front, but don't forget it's the opposite in supermarkets, as they want people to buy in order of 'use by' date, otherwise there'd be even more wastage than there already is. I think that Sainsbury's did what they could and tried to give you a £5 voucher to compensate you for your frozen Scotch egg.

I don't think that they were new because there were only two packs of eggs in the fridge, I didn't intentionally go to the back it was all that was left, they had only one days date I think they'd been there a while.

Thanks, I wasn't near a Morrison's but I'll keep that in mind!

Not sure where the 'twice frozen' theory is coming from - I am sure Scotch Eggs are chilled goods and are never intentionally frozen because frozen hard boiled eggs are not nice. The 'do not freeze' instruction will be because of that, not because of any health risk in a properley stored fresh chilled Scotch Egg.

Blu, that's what I thought, you don't freeze eggs because it would ruin them. Other posters have said that they are frozen in transit so I assumed that I must be wrong about that.

This would never happen at Waitrose

Haha I work with someone who was disgusted that when Tesco deliver your shopping you have to pick it up out of the crates yourself. Apparently Waitrose bring it in and unload it for you.

Totally missing the point op my son will only eat the outside of the scotch egg not the actually egg they would great pair !

They would

I have a picture of this egg I want to show you all now.

I doubt they checked the fridges. They're being sloppy again.

I've contacted three times in the past few months about different issues. I've now stopped shopping there as they were like this when I worked for them 20 years ago

If they were the last ones left at the back of the freezer with only a day left on the sell/use by then I would think either they had been frozen and not had a chance to defrost....or they got frozen from being too near the back

sorry...last ones left at the back of the fridge...

The same thing happened to me but from Waitrose. I emailed them and after two days I received a response which resulted in them giving me £5 voucher. The scotch eggs that I purchased were at the front of the fridge and not the back. The next eggs I bought were fine.

x2boys - DS2 only eats the egg & DD only eats the outside. At least there's no waste .