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?

It's not particularly clear on the front, but there is more than enough info on the package for someone who needs to avoid trace amounts of alcohol to be able to check the ingredients and realise it's included.

Yes I can almost taste the cognac-y taste of a profiterole’s cream now you say that. I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to check the ingredients of a dessert though if avoiding alcohol as loads of puds contain it. Does it have the added bonus of helping to preserve?

I agree with you OP. If it contains alcohol or the flavour of it, it should be written on the front of the packaging.
I would ask them to keep in touch with you regarding the outcome. You could also contact Alcohol Support groups to see if they have more clout. The amount of alcohol may well be negligible, but for someone who is tee total, a recovering alcoholic, a child or is not allowed alcohol for religious reasons, this could be upsetting and triggering.

My husband doesn’t take alcohol…I always read the ingredients list.

It does say 'contains alcohol' quite clearly on the front of the package, in white against a dark background.

Surely it should also say that it contains milk products/lactose (mascarpone) and nuts. It also contains wheat, egg and soya. These are potentially life-threatening allergens, but are not stated nearly as clearly as the alcohol.

I'm not sure that emphasising the alcohol more than the allergens is ideal, but it just shows that we all need to check for ourselves what we are consuming, rather than rely on the supplier to pick out the particular ingredient we have a problem with, which may be different from what someone else does.

Still not sure from your posts what exactly you’re looking for here? They’re going to feed back the information, have apologised and give you a £10 voucher. Presumably the powers that be at Sainsbury’s will look to see if there is a need to make the ingredient more prominently labelled, but other than that I can’t see what else they can do?

Having Contains Alcohol in tiny letters away from the description of the pudding doesn't make it clear. It should at the very least have been in the description of it.

This thread is absolutely batshit crazy. A pudding that contains alcohol has 'contains alcohol' on the front and has alcohol listed in the ingredients. Yet that's not enough for some people!

I had a look and to be fair I had to zoom in and hunt a bit to see the 'contains alcohol' words. So I would say it would be easily missed especially when the description didn't seem to suggest there was alcohol in it.

However, I think the response you had was right, really. Because the issue was the packaging and the way the information about alcohol wasn't very prominent and was quite camouflaged, imo.

So every ingredient should be in the name of the product?

Alcohol is listed in the ingredients.

Alcohol is on the front, unlike the many allergens included.

I agree I wouldn't expect the dessert to taste of booze and it doesn't sound very nice, but there's nothing misleading here. As you'd expect from a major supermarket and a tightly controlled ingredient!

I think it’s a bit like the difference between caramel and salted caramel - leaving aside other concerns it significantly changes the taste.

Agreed (although I'm happy with both caramel and salted caramel ), it's bad marketing. But not misleading, the info is there for anyone who needs it.

What exactly have you seen?

No not every ingredient, but if it tastes of alcohol then absolutely because the name tends to describe the flavour.

Could be bigger and under the main name of the product

It’s clearly labelled “contains alcohol” on the front, in bold white text right above the use by date. Dunno how much clearer you want them to make it?

No, but if it's a chocolate and hazelnut desert, I expect it to taste of that and not of something else. Would you be happy if you bought a pecan pie and then when you had warmed it up that it tasted of bananas instead? Probably not, it would be deceptive labeling on the packaging.

If it had banana clearly labelled both on the front and in the ingredients panel I’d probably expect to taste banana regardless of how they named the pie.

'More clout'?! For what! People do really want spoon fed don't they! (And someone else to read the ingredients list of what they're being spoon fed!)

Well what if it was the exact dessert the OP got and the only mention of banana on the front was 'contains bananas' where the tiny 'contains alcohol' writing is.
And when you tasted it it had a strong taste of bananas.

Wouldn't you think that that was completely bizarre and that the flavour was misrepresented for no apparent reason?

takes bow with flourish

😁

It's not clear

If they'd moved the teaspoon it would be clearer but much better to put it on the purple bit. That side is where they hide things like "serves 2" and "per pot" so you don't realise how unhealthy they are

If something tastes clearly of alcohol I want that to literally be in the name of the product - or at the very least it should be in the description.
That's how clear I want it to be made.

The name was 'chocolate hazelnut pots'
And it was described as 'sponge biscuit layered with creamy chocolate hazelnut mascarpone and topped with hazelnuts and chocolate shavings'.

You shouldn't have to look all over the rest of the packet to see if there's any other strong flavours.

It wasn't clear at all.

It's clearly some kind of a tiramasu rip off they should just own it and mention the booze