Freezer turned off - is the meat safe to eat?

[Chulita]

My nieces were round on Thursday, just noticed this morning that the freezer's turned off at the wall. DD couldn't have done it so that means it must have been off since Thursday afternoon. We opened it last night but didn't notice it was off. The ice-cream's semi-defrosted, some meat is still frozen solid, some is partially defrosted. If it's still unopened from the supermarket is it alright to refreeze it? Do I need to cook it all and then refreeze it?

I would defrost it thoroughly, cook it and then re-freeze it.

It sounds like the meat has been defrosted and partially refrozen. I would say safest to chuck it if that is the case.

Nah. I'd definitely leave the solid frozen meat and try and eat the partially defrosted stuff fairly soon, cooked very well. Obviously if it stinks when you get do defrost it then chuck, but otherwise it should be OK.

agree with daisy moo

A bit late I know but had to jump in here from my vast experience of the freezer. We have 4 large freezers and from time to time someone unplugs or it trips out etc.

If a product is partically frozen then I have safely re-freezed it including fish. Even though it has been unplugged the freezer is still very chilled and because of the amount of products in there have kept the contents still frozen. The products have not reached their critical stage ie when bacteria starts to grow. And as long as the majority is frozen then I was always told it is fine. Conteray to belief, a lot of processed foods as made from frozen meats which are defrosted and re-froz without cooking because its done in a very controlled environment. If you look at some fish products in the supermarket it does state "previously frozen" but I have always re-froze them too. Obviously with foods like this you do need to cook throughly and you wouldnt serve blue steak.
I had a turkey at the weekend that was from christmas before last. It was perfect, taste and texture fab.
These micro-biologists would love me but if we listened to everthing they said then we wouldnt leave the house.