To think just offering a refund is not enough?

[CircleofWillis]

I went to a nationwide supermarket yesterday and bought a trolley full of shopping including some kiddy food ready meals that were on offer. My DD is a bit of a fussy eater so I thought I'd have a go at offering her new foods without the effort and pain of having to cook and probably throw away a home cooked meal. (I normally cook everything from scratch so this is a bit of a departure for me.) When I got home I discovered one of the ready meals was dated best before end April 2015. The product contains beef but does not need chilling. I immediately called up the store to warn them. I got through to customer services who apologised and offered a refund. I had to suggest they should check the rest of stock and they said they would and would have hung up if I hadn't asked 'don't you want the details about the product?' I insisted on giving the name of the item and then the assistant did go and check to make sure there was nothing left on the shelves. I also gave the barcode and asked if there was any way they could check to see if any more out of date ones had been sold. Not sure if that was possible on the system but the assistant really didn't seem concerned or proactive considering children could have been eating a meat product 16 months out of date. Am I being too fussy? I'm not someone who throws food away the moment of midnight on their bbe but 16 MONTHS!!! I think just offering a flat refund is a bit paltry too. To me it suggests that their whole storage and stock rotation and staff training needs monitoring.

[possum18]

I'm sure when I worked at Waitrose their policy used to be refund and replace, to reinstate the tarnished food and refund the money too, I thought that was good as it would contribute towards the annoying time spent complaining/traveling back to the shop.
They definitely should have taken down, with interest, the item details to remove the rest.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Foodbanks always specify in date food Lilac so it sounds like they don't accept any that is out of date, so they would probably throw away anything that was donated but out of date.

[LoreleiGilmoreIsMyBFF]

croc absolutely agree with the reasons for the stealth boast, and another here who would do the same!

[PersianCatLady]

The product contains beef but does not need chilling
What on Earth is this product, can you give us a link at all?

[PersianCatLady]

Forget to add, what more than a refund do you want exactly?

Perhaps if you ate it you could hope (on a very slight off chance) get terrible food poisoning and then you could claim for compensation??
But that would be just silly really.

[DameXanaduBramble]

I'm assuming it's one of the heart shaped toddler meals you find with the baby food jars.

[WannaBe]

While I can see that OP might state that she cooks from scratch, I don't see how anyone can go from cooking from scratch to buying additive-laiden non-chilled crap off the shelves rather than out of the fridge. There is middle ground between the two, surely?

I cook from scratch and there is no way on this earth I would buy that kind of shite food. if I were going down the ready meal route as a quick fix I would at least buy one from the fridge with real ingredients

[ladymarymoo]

OP if you are concerned then call the manufacturer quoting details on the packaging, they will be v angry that their shelf space has out of dates products.

Doubt the Daily Fail would care but maybe on a slow news day?

[BarbaraofSeville]

Otherwise she'd get 50 posters ignoring her actual question and telling her that they would never buy ready meals for their dc

And here they are pretending not to be able to imagine the ambient ready meal category.

I'm sure the people at Ella's kitchen are estatic that their products are being described on here as 'additive-laiden non-chilled crap'

Ingredients:

Organic Vegetables 50% (Onions, Red Peppers, Tomatoes, Yellow Peppers, Peas + Potatoes), Organic Vegetable Stock 30% (Water and Organic Ingredients: Rice Flour, Onions, Carrots, Turmeric, Pepper, Sunflower Oil + Parsley), Organic Chicken 10%, Organic Rice 8%, Organic Cornflour 2%, Organic Garlic

[PersianCatLady]

pretending not to be able to imagine the ambient ready meal category
It has been a long time since my son ate toddler food.

He is 16 now, 5 foot 10 and weighs 9 stone and thinks nothing of eating 2 chicken chargrills, a family size portion of rice, 2 tortilla wraps and a side plate of salad so I am sorry about my ignorance regarding these things.

Looking at the food in question I don't even think that things like that were around when he was a toddler. There were those little tins and cans but I have never seen this type of toddler meal before.

[MrsKHB]

Wow I wish these meals were around when my 3 were little, it would have saved many a crooked meal ending up in the bin. -or being hoovered up by me-

[lljkk]

I would have heated it up & eaten it.

[BlurryFace]

OP, I've worked in supermarkets before and I would imagine that the person who refunded you will mention it to a supervisor/manager/ambient assistant who will make sure the other trays get checked. The person refunding you probably can't make any promises as to what will happen because they're very low down the pecking order and managers can get a bit snappy if they are summoned to every single refund of an item that's gone bad.

Anyone who has worked in a supermarket will tell you this sort of thing happens all the time and that supermarkets are filthy. Worked at a shop that had been bought out and needed gutting, the things that you find when moving shelving units and fridges that have been in place for years...