To have expected a better response from big supermarket regarding out of date food?

[Pollony]

I bought some bacon from aldi last friday and on Sunday, after I had eated some, realised it was 4 days out of date on purchase so almost a week out of date when I ate it.

I emailed customer services to inform them because I think its pretty dangerous to be selling out of date food, I realise that with bacon I'm ok and it probably wouldnt have hurt me but my point was what if it wasnt bacon and was fish or soft cheese or something and somebody didnt realise they could end up seriously ill, I have a 3 year old and I just keep thinking what if I had fed it to them instead?

I said that in my email. I also included pictures of the bacon, the recipt and the barcode off the back so they had proof I wasnt lieing. I didn't want anything more than an apology and them to be aware so that it couldn't happen to someone else.

I got my reply today (almost a week later again) and there was no apology, there was nothing except an outline of there checking policy which to me felt like they were insinuating that it couldn't possibly have happened and a note on the end saying if I returned the bacon to store I could get a refund. Why would I have kept bacon that by this point would be 2 weeks out of date?

AIBU to think that A) they should be taking this more seriously and B) to have expected some sort of apology?

Yuck. I'm not sure but can you report this to environmental health? Or threaten to?

@IndieTara

What else would you want them to do? They sold you something that was off and they offered to refund it. That's standard for anything you buy that is faulty.

It’s crap that they didn’t apologise but they probably do get people trying it on who want compensation, so may feel that apologising admits liability and opens them up to claims.

But I wouldn’t lose sleep over it

@curtainsforme I was annoyed because there was no apology of any sort. It wasn't worth driving back to the shop to get a refund as it would have cost me more in petrol.

Also yes, ideally everyone should check 'Use by' but I think it's more of the supermarket's responsibility that yours.

I work in a food shop, much smaller than ALDI's and we have to date check everyday, but some times things get missed. The biggest problem is if another member of staff shoves the longer date products in front of the short date products, or customers move them around, ideally we would check every single item in each and every row, but we dont always have time.

In a situation like yours, the customer would bring it back and we would either refund or give them another one.

You are being unreasonable for saying ‘eated.’

Clearly a typo but did make me think of cutted up pear

was annoyed because there was no apology of any sort. It wasn't worth driving back to the shop to get a refund as it would have cost me more in petrol

You wanted them to compensate you because the veg was off?

@curtainsforme

was annoyed because there was no apology of any sort. It wasn't worth driving back to the shop to get a refund as it would have cost me more in petrol

You wanted them to compensate you because the veg was off?

@curtains please tell me where in my above post I said I wanted compensation. I was responding to the OP's opening post saying Aldi had not even apologised.

Not sure why you're feeling the need to make things up for no apparent reason stir.

You ok hun?

I work in a supermarket - I wouldnt say that OOD food being on the shelves is a "regular" thing but it does happen on occasion.

Usually it is only a day or two OOD and can be put down to either a colleague missing it when date checking/stock rotating or customers having rifled through the stock to find the best dated package and that one has ended up shoved in the middle of a box of longer dated items.

If customers notice in store then we will refund them, exchange if they want it and have a colleague check the rest of the stock to make sure it is just an outlier.

If a customer doesnt realise until they get home that an item is OOD then if they call the store direct we can again check the rest of the stock on the shelves and then (at least at my store) if the customer doesnt want to come back that day we make a note of their name and exchange/refund the item next time they come shopping.

If however they phone head office then it can take days for the information to be passed back to the store (at which point it will be useless checking the shelves for other OOD items as they will have been long purchased if there were more) and HO will deal with it by sending a letter saying how "distressing it must have been to find out that X was OOD" (so not admitting liability by apologising) and outlining store guidelines with OOD products. They would also include the refund in the letter in the form of a gift card for the store. So exactly what you'd get in store but the information doesnt get passed to the store in time to do anything useful.

Do Aldi even have gift vouchers/cards? I know at my company HO issues them for refunds/goodwill etc as we also have them at Customer Services in store but I have never seen an Aldi gift voucher/card so if they dont have store branded gift cards/vouchers,how are they supposed to offer a refund without you going back into store? Put some coins in an envelope?

@IndieTara

Are you not capable of adult discussion?

I asked what you wanted them to do? What did you want them to do?

@Likethebattle

I bought biscuits that were out of date so took them back to Asda and got my money back. Two days later those biscuits were back on the shelf.

How did you know they were the exact same packet and not another from the same batch yours came from that had also been missed?

Always out of date stuff in morrisons but you cant stop it happening to someone else as there will always be human error!

It can happen. It could have been hiding at the back after someone didnt want it and put it back.

I don't understand why you dont check the dates on things before buying them? There's always at least two dates available.

@curtainsforme err no that's not what you asked me at all. What you actually asked me was

'You wanted them to compensate you because the veg was off ?'

If you had asked me what I wanted them to do you'd have said

'What did you want them to do?'

See the difference there...

And to repeat as per the OP's opening post, Aldi should have apologised, it's just good customer service

@IndieTara

I had already asked what you wanted them to do. Prior to the post you have quoted.

I just wanted to make them aware so it doesnt happen to someone else.

And you did that. So now you can forget about it and move on.

it happens occasionally - if it didn't you wouldn't get food reduced that had reached it's sell by date.

I was slightly hacked off the other day when I pointed something out to a staff member & they simply said 'well don't buy it then' - reported that to their customer services team, as it was a 'use by' rather than 'best before'.

@curtainsforme and I had already said more than once it was because they hadn't even apologised.
There was no need to be goady and put words in my mouth

Maybe the supermarket assumed you weren't an idiot?

They put the date on the package. Is it really their fault you can't be bothered to read it?

Jesus.

@IndieTara

I wasn't being goady. You were offered a refund which is standard with something faulty. I asked what more you expected them to do. You said you were annoyed because there was no 'apology of any sort' which did lead me to ask if you wanted compensated. So what 'sort' of apology did you want? You were getting your money back. That's usually what happens. You don't need an extra apology. It wasn't even the supermarkets fault in your situation. The veg was in date. It was just an unfortunate incident.

Move on errors happen. People should be thanking supermarkets currently for all the hard work staff have put in making sure people can have food

Well, yes an apology would have been nice. But their staff are human, so can miss things when checking. In much the same way that you missed the fact that the bacon was out of date when you picked it up and bought it.