urgh - mince mouldy on the inside - complain to butchers?

[teejwood]

i went to do a batch of cooking for the week ahead. went to the fridge, pulled out a kilo of mince i bought fresh from the butcher yesterday and when i was tipping it into the pan i broke up the "lump" and found that some of the mince had gone mouldy on the inside of the lump of meat iykwim.

it had started oxidising on the outside as well, which is really unusual in such a short time period (24 hours).

i just dumped the lot in the bin and will cook up something else during the week but am a bit

does that sound like a problem at the butchers or in my fridge? and if the former, do i complain or just put it down to freak occurence?

i've been using this butchers for a good few years; it specialises in free range etc and is not cheap!

You MUST complain, in case it's a problem they're not aware of and somebody gets sick.

I don't see how it can be a problem in your fridge if you only bought it yesterday. Even if you left it in a warm room for 24 hours there wouldn't be visible mould.

You should have kept it and taken it back. What you describe normally only happens when old meat gets mixed up with fresh. BTW.. just because a butcher does free-range, doesn't mean they're above trying to fiddle on quality.

thanks, elderberry and cogito - i will complain to them just in case it's a problem they were not aware of. i did think afterwards that maybe i should have kept it but i just could not countenance keeping it in the house (was long term veggie and eat/cook meat for the family under sufferance as it is!)

i was really shocked as I had bought a chicken too; roasted that today and it was fine but it was pre-wrapped from one of their suppliers iykwim.

will check out the local area forum to see if anyone else has had a problem.

An old trick that crappy butchers used to do was to take some mince that was a bit past its best and starting to discolour on the outside, & run it through the mincer again. This mixes the discoloured outside with the pinker inside making it look a bit fresher for a short time. :)