Alcohol in pudding not clearly displayed

[Purpledefector]

I need a bit of a reality check - prefacing to say I'm 2.5 years sober - and not sure if this is clouding my judgement a bit.

I bought a dine in meal in Sainsbury's and the pudding was ' chocolate hazelnut pots' ' sponge biscuit layered with creamy chocolate hazelnut mascarpone and topped with hazelnuts and chocolate shavings'.

When I started to eat it I immediately noticed the very obvious taste of alcohol. Went and checked the packaging and listed within the ingredients was 'alcohol' but this wasn't mentioned or hinted at anywhere else on the product - in the picture or the describing words.

I was really surprised by this lack of transparency. Sainsbury's responded to my complaint really quickly - offered me a £10 gift card and said it would be fed back to the packaging department. I said that I felt that didn't reflect the seriousness of the issue and asked for it to be raised with a manager. It has been and their response is the same.

It's not sitting right with me, it feels like a huge error - and I want to take it further.

What's the general consensus?

Oh dear. It's an easy trap to fall into, and oh my DAYS tiramisu is bloody lush! 😩😚 I could eat it every day. (I don't!)

Ironic that, just like the op missing where it said on the packaging (twice) that the product contains alcohol that so many other posters are missing the many, many posts stating just that.

There is a statutory use of bold in the ingredients list for specified common allergens. If you start putting random other stuff in bold it will be harder for people to spot those.

It's a legal requirement, not a design choice you can play with as you fancy.

@MummyDummyNow

It is clearly written on the front of the packaging as well as in the ingredients, just because op didn't notice, it doesn't mean it wasn't there. I buy these (yummy) and they are not high enough in alcohol to make them restricted to over 18's anyway

Huh? My kids are both anaphylactic to several allergens including some that are not in the main 14 that need to be highlighted by law.

It's up to us to make sure of the ingredients. I'm not sure why you think avoiding alcohol should take precedence over actual life threatening issues when being highlighted on packaging..

I don't know OP. I'm a long term vegan and members of my family are very upset by accidentally eating meat so I have long learned the art of the label scan (in English and several European languages) :-) Obvs it's on me if I make a mistake. I have been caught out a couple of times in France for instance, because most of the ingredients I need to look for are allergens and bolded out usually - maybe alcohol should be too? - and you get very used to looking for the familiar names of additives etc, but meat isn't and I missed pork fat on a can of green lentils recently because it wasn't bolded and I wasn't looking for it. That said all I'm going to get from it is distress and sometimes a tummy upset (dairy) not long-term impact - alcohol arguably different. I can see a case for emphasising alcohol and some other items eg pork on labels on the basis of people's religious and cultural requirements as well but it would maybe need to be on a different framework from the allergen one which has to stand out.

But it seems it was on there clearly so although I feel for you I think you need to step your checks up a bit.

Yikes that must be so stressful for you. (& them of course!)

Vanilla extract is an alcohol… so are a lot of other flavoring ingredients. Where do we go from here?

Just take some responsibility for yourself as an adult.

completely get this.

I work at a food bank and any new product that is dropped off to us is given a good check to see if there's any reason it can't go out with anyone's food parcel.

Alcohol is the top one and nuts being the second. And it's really surprising how much stuff is donated that contains alcohol - someone even donated a dozen bottles of mulled wine at Christmas obviously thinking they were doing the right thing. When we can't give items back to the donor we leave them where the volunteers work and some of them are happy to "dispose" of them.

Even silly me who works there - had some spare cash and it was a school break coming up so I bought a dozen jars of peanut butter, thinking easy lunches and snacks for kids. All of them had to be put out in the "at your own risk" area so people could take them but we couldn't put them in the holiday hunger bags being handed out.

There are all sorts of ingredients different people need to avoid and they check the ingredients. I don't see how alcohol is any different?

Anyone with an allergy or actual issue checks ingredients where it was listed.
You aren’t allergic therefore didn’t check.
What’s your actual point?

This was a cold dessert, not a cooked/baked product though.

Dairy, gluten, nuts, sugar, animal products and alcohol are all commonly found in puddings. They are also things that many people can’t eat which is why there is a list of ingredients. The information is there so I think the response was fine. Once they have provided that info it is really your responsibility. What more do you want from them?

There is an ingredient I avoid so I check the ingredients list of certain foods when shopping. As long as it’s mentioned I don’t see the problem. It’s not like you need to check everything for alcohol but surely a dessert, pudding or cake might be the kind of thing that could potentially contain alcohol so you’d expect to check?

You are quite right, when I wrote that first post I hadn’t considered that the only things allowed to be in bold are the main allergens, and that it would complicate things. As I have said it later posts, I don’t think that alcohol traces and allergens are comparable when it comes to food labelling so it wasn’t a sensible suggestion of mine.

I also hadn’t seen other posters pointing out that is it printed clearly and separately on the front of the packet that they contain alcohol. That is a much better way of handling it and I stand corrected!

there's alcohol in vanilla extract. you wouldn't be this up in arms over a Victoria sponge.

Why are you accepting the £10 when it had ‘contains alcohol’ on the front and in the ingredients?. You made a mistake not seeing the text on the front. Yet you still feel entitled to claim the £10?!

It does say ‘Contains alcohol’ on the front though.

Exactly
Why does it have 'alcohol' in the ingredients but not say what alcohol it is?
How are you supposed to know what the flavour is going to be then?

Alcohol is a drug ? can you get Gin on prescription ?

This was very gracious! Not something you see often on here!

Yes, good point. Nut allergies are the most well known but there are other allergies that are equally as serious.

Oh boy are you wrong. This ‘desert’ is clearly a gateway drug to the hard stuff.

You can bet your bottom dollar that posters child would have been raiding the local A&E necking hand sanitiser within 6 months of consumption of a teaspoon full of it 😜

In all seriousness though it is on the front right above the expiry date, I expect most people look at the expiry date before deciding to purchase something. Just chalk it up to experience and remember for next time.