Was I responsible for the milk at work today or was breakfast person

[Tina5]

Work in a nursery kitchen, I sort out breakfast trollies and housekeeper makes toast/put’s milk on trollies in the mornings.
Went in today to find the Chef said to me that a staff member bought back one of the milks (Oat Milk dated 5 January) and said it was my fault as I should have checked milks were in date however I told her that it was not my responsibility to check milk dates as that’s house keepers jobs.
Again after insisting it was down to me to check the dates as milk was in the kitchen fridge and I should have checked the dates on all milks and me not agreeing we kind of agreed to disagree on it.
Was this down to me? Who would you say was in the wrong here?

I think this is too specific to your work place for us to know your exact job role.

If you come into contact with gone off milk in a nursery then I'd expect you to bin it.

Although milk often lasts waaay past the date but I'm guessing you've strict rules in childcare settings.

Is date checking not a daily thing that gets signed off? If not before, it should be now. When I worked in food services, it was always a daily check at a set time of day.

Well, whose job IS IT to do the stock check rotation? We don't know.

^ this - who checks the chicken is stored at the right temperature and not dripping on the cheese? It’s that persons responsibility to check the date on the milk.

If you put the milk out, you should take some responsibility for it. it takes no time at all to have a quick look, and if the nursery was closed at all for the bank holidays then it would be common sense to check.

The responsibility should be shared, but you sound as if you think it had nothing to do with you, which is a very childish attitude to take over something so simple.

I don't know but I would want the answer very clearly in writing so that I knew what to do in future! You can't just vaguely agree to disagree, whose job is it?!

If you're in charge of the kitchen, you're in charge of stock rotations and responsible for all the food in the kitchen. Something out of date shouldn't have been in the kitchen to begin with.

In the real world, Oat milk would probably be fine and I'd definitely drink it myself if it was unopened. But in a commercial kitchen you have to be so careful would food safety.

I would think the chef would be the one actually in charge so it's his/her responsibility.

I think if there is a lack of clarity as to whose responsibility it is then your employer needs to sort that now so that you do all know. Otherwise, everyone is relying on the common sense of those working with the milk and clearly some people sorely lack that.

How are we supposed to know?

It's whoever's job your manager says it is. This isn't really a grey area, someone is responsible for date checking and the manager needs to be clear about who it is.

It’s everyone’s responsibility. Was the oat milk used on other days previously or was it a sealed carton just opened on this occasion? If it was a pack that had been used several days prior and out of date then it had been put back in the fridge out of date too by other members of staff.

She was deflecting a bit by blaming you, probably because, as the nursery chef, she was feeling uncomfortable because she’d kept out of date milk in the fridge.

All in all I think you’d all be better just accepting that going forward all members of staff need to check the milk before using it. This was a wake up call.