MORE ROTTEN TURKEYS FOR THE 3rd YEAR RUNNING AT CHRISTMAS
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) state on the front page of their website “Food we can trust”. “Our job is to use our expertise and influence so that people can trust that the food they buy and eat is safe and what it says it is”.
For the third year running there have been stories in the media about rotten turkeys being sold and therefore ruining Christmas for the purchasers, their families and friends.
The supermarkets implicated this year were Aldi & Tesco, see the links below.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/10616575/aldi-turkey-christmas-rotten-gone-off/
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/tesco-aldi-customers-furious-over-17474178
We note that Aldi also had some other problems with cooking bags for turkeys. See link below:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/10624770/aldi-christmas-shoppers-turkey-bag-melts/
You may recall in 2018 the supermarkets implicated were Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury's & Tesco, as can be seen in the links to the articles below from the Daily Mirror and Metro respectively.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sainsburys-tesco-aldi-customers-complain-13776547
https://metro.co.uk/2018/12/26/christmas-ruined-families-discovered-supermarket-bought-turkey-gone-mouldy-8283887/
In 2017 there were similar problems
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-42502367
The FSA need to address the problem of the “use by dates” which it claimed back in October 2018 it would do, after a review of cutting plants and Cold stores in +18 months, even if legislation was required.
(This review was brought about by ITV News and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealing how kill by dates were being altered
which therefore affects the use by date).
As a regulator, if you see the same continuous problem(s), you may think that they would act, especially one such as the FSA that claim to put the consumer first.
Knowingly incorrectly using a “use by date” is fraud (Food Fraud)
and placing food which is not fit for human consumption is against the law and can be dangerous to a person’s health.
If suppliers or supermarkets allow such, the regulator should act to prevent it, instead of what the FSA are proposing under their flagship policy “Regulating our Future”, which will allow food businesses to audit their own work rather than allowing truly independent government or local authority staff to physically inspect food premises.
Some Supermarkets use food industry-based audits to check their food suppliers etc, however, this has not prevented recent food scares and the public do not know what these audits reveal as the FSA do not publish them.
The FSA only publish campylobacter results for fresh shop-bought UK-produced chickens from the top 9 food retailers. This was only done after protests from consumer groups.
Also, the FSA alerts in relation to “recalls”, appears to be being used by some food companies in allowing them not to check if their food is safe or does not contain allergens etc, which is their responsibility prior to selling.
At best, if a product has to be recalled, the consumer only gets a refund which may not cover their costs of returning the product. At worst, there is also the possibility that they may suffer illness if they are unfortunate enough to have consumed the product.
Whilst a lot of people would argue that our food is safer than other countries (An argument which may well be correct) we also need to put our own house in order, before we can criticise others with any real authority or from a morale point of view.
Finally thank each and everyone one of you for your continued help and support. The petition now has over 216,700 votes which is truly overwhelming, please keep sharing.
Happy New Year!