Tesco and Sainsbury's knowingly selling out of date meat

[vimfuego]

Call me nieve but this shocks me a bit.

Old meat is being sold at the butcher's counter and chiller cabinet meat is being re-packaged and re-labelled with fake dates.

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It was the day after i had come home from hospital from having a major (ish) operation, so was feeling a bit poo.

Anyway, dh bought some meat from tesco and he did a little bbg for us for lunch (Ilove bbqs, he wanted to cheer me up) it was yummy and had a nice day.

Well 12 hours later me and dh were almost dying!!! Both 'ends' same time, I fainted and we were very ill for a good 24 hours! Had to pack dd off to uncles and aunties cos we couldnt get out of bed! (dd didnt have any meat)

I know meat was cooked properly as dh is VERY particular and fussy when it comes to his food. He would rather burn than undercook.

After seeing doc last night, maybe thats why??!!

Now you see, I just don't let them get away with that Mumpbump because we can't afford for food to go off. We have to eat what's bought or go without til next week.

Did any of you watch that programme? I felt that it was the staff that were basically morons who couldn't be bothered - I certainly didn't feel that Sainsburys and Tescos would be condoning such behaviour, in fact their training programmes were indicating certain standards that were not being adhered to. It seemed to be down to poor management of staff actually, by the store managers. There should have been better supervision.

I am sure that the staff involved were sacked after this programme, but I have no idea if this is the case. I felt that the programme was also a bit misleading - it isn't illegal (as claimed) to have a fridge at the temperature quoted on camera. Cutting raw meat after touching cooked meat is not a problem, it is the other way round that is - but the camera crew wanted to find problems and so they did. Rats outside a food store - well, yes they like food.

By the way, I don't work at Tescos, or Sainsburys, I just felt it was sensationalist clap trap. If you film people covertly, they are bound to do silly things sometimes - I am sure that local butchers are no better but we have to buy our food from somewhere.

By the way, if you have sickness and the runs for 24 hours, it is unlikely to be food poisoning. I had food poisoning once and I was still feeling unwell 3 months later - I was sick for over a week and couldn't eat for about 2. (It wasn't one of my best holidays, particularly as I got the food poisoning on the second day!)

Twinkle - I think I shall be taking any food that goes off before the BB date back in the future... It's just finding the time to do it is a problem as I work full-time and am always so knackered in the evenings! But I always thought it might have been something I had done, rather than that the supermarkets were knowingly selling dodgy food! Must be even more cynical...

I worked for ten years for a well known supermarket. Of course the official company line is that there are strict rules about rotation of stock. However, there are also strict rules about the level of 'waste' that departments are allowed to generate. This causes the department managers to become very scared of going over their target levels....and encourages them to 'roll' food. I used to work in fruit and veg, and often was told by my manager to empty out of date potatoes, for example, into a new crate with a up to date label on. They cant do this with pre-packed stuff, obviously, but they get round this by opening the packets and selling them as 'loose'.

I'm sure it goes on on the meat and deli counters too, the food can be easily re-labelled and I'm sure they wouldn't throw away a huge out of date parma ham, for example...heads would roll at the waste figures. Food was often left on cages on the loading bay for long periods as well, when the cut off time for refrigerated food is 20 minutes. That programme did not surprise me at all.

You don't make £2bn profit a year without putting financial targets & waste management at the top of your agenda, and imposing targets on your staff.

If those targets are corporate policy, which they will be, then those practises will be going on in many, many supermarkets. The targets become more important than the food quality to those working the floor.

Bottom line, we get what we pay for. I've become totally dependent on supermarkets but that was the final straw. I'm boycotting for a month.