Butcher's selling bad produce

stevek93

Hi all,

Who could I contact about this? I purchased chicken yesterday it smelled awful and was grey in colour. I checked their Google reviews and found that someone posted the below,

"I bought some chicken today and was very surprised that the butcher asked his helper to get me a fresher pack as the pack on offer was only fresh till tomorrow.
The helper went to the back and seemed to be repackaging the meat with a new cling film thus removing the sellby date.
I have not voiced my thoughts to the butcher but will keep you posted as to the results of our discussion."

What I am concerned about is someone getting sick from this.

L1011

FSAI

https://www.fsai.ie/make_a_complaint.html

degsie

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/1/environ/food-safety-complaints.html

stevek93

Thanks all.

Xterminator

wouldnt the butcher be the 1st place to call?

L1011

Xterminator wrote: »

wouldnt the butcher be the 1st place to call?

If all you want is a refund and the potential practice to continue, sure.

stevek93

Xterminator wrote: »

wouldnt the butcher be the 1st place to call?

Seriously? If someone is selling bad meat and I believe he is knowingly doing it why would he care what I think? He changed the date on a package, and the chicken I bought was more spice than chicken probably to mask it not being fresh.

stevek93

L1011 wrote: »

If all you want is a refund and the potential practice to continue, sure.

And there is two thanks on this post, makes me even more worried...

s1ippy

Definitely FSAI. They're incredibly efficient and brilliant to deal with.

Tails142

Surely a business can't operate like that and expect to stay operating, what I mean is, why would you ever darken their door again? And if word gets around how could they hope to stay in business, repeat customers would be a necessity for any butchers.

Edit: sorry I see you were just quoting a review, ignore below, sure report them to fsai if you got dodgy meat off them and leave a google review yourself, might start a trend

You sure he wasn't just packing a fresh piece of chicken breast into the box?

stevek93

Tails142 wrote: »

Surely a business can't operate like that and expect to stay operating, what I mean is, why would you ever darken their door again? And if word gets around how could they hope to stay in business, repeat customers would be a necessity for any butchers.

Edit: sorry I see you were just quoting a review, ignore below, sure report them to fsai if you got dodgy meat off them and leave a google review yourself, might start a trend

You sure he wasn't just packing a fresh piece of chicken breast into the box?

Especially when they aren't the only butcher in the shopping centre. They are that type of butcher that has everything prepackaged in foil trays wrapped in cling film something that feels more like a supermarket.

The other one is a old school butchers everything is displayed behind glass and you tell the butcher how much you want which I much prefer.

stevek93

s1ippy wrote: »

Definitely FSAI. They're incredibly efficient and brilliant to deal with.

Thanks I filled in a form on their site.

BeardySi

So you're reporting some hearsay based on what you read on Google reviews? You seem to be making more of that than how they dealt with your specific issue. No butcher would knowingly sell spoiled meat because they know they'd be out of business in no time.

What happened when you returned your chicken to them?
I assume you got a satisfactory replacement or refund? If not then you have an issue.

Have you gotten spoiled produce from them in the past? Have you any concrete reason to suspect systemic bad practice bar what a randomer on Google said they think they saw?

I got a pack of gone off bacon from Lidl once, plenty of bad things said about them online, should I report them?

If you're going to lodge a complaint do it about what you got. If Food Standards see a pattern of such complaints they'll investigate and deal with the matter.
If you're going to complain about he said/she said stuff based on what you believe from what Google reviewers said they think they saw you'll just just come off as a crank...

stevek93

BeardySi wrote: »

So you're reporting some hearsay based on what you read on Google reviews? You seem to be making more of that than how they dealt with your specific issue. No butcher would knowingly sell spoiled meat because they know they'd be out of business in no time.

What happened when you returned your chicken to them?
I assume you got a satisfactory replacement or refund? If not then you have an issue.

Have you gotten spoiled produce from them in the past? Have you any concrete reason to suspect systemic bad practice bar what a randomer on Google said they think they saw?

I got a pack of gone off bacon from Lidl once, plenty of bad things said about them online, should I report them?

If you're going to lodge a complaint do it about what you got. If Food Standards see a pattern of such complaints they'll investigate and deal with the matter.
If you're going to complain about he said/she said stuff based on what you believe from what Google reviewers said they think they saw you'll just just come off as a crank...

Eh sorry I just quoted a review nothing more your whole post appears to be about the review. :rolleyes:

I bought bad chicken and a bad lambs heart from this butcher previously in the past I bought bad liver, I believe that this requires the attention of the FSAI.

BeardySi

stevek93 wrote: »

Eh sorry I just quoted a review nothing more your whole post appears to be about the review. :rolleyes:

I bought bad chicken and a bad lambs heart from this butcher previously in the past I bought bad liver, I believe that this requires the attention of the FSAI.

Absolutely, shame you didn't mention any of that previously in the thread instead of going on about things that were nothing to do with your experience....

Report (I see you have already), move on and don't use them again.

stevek93

BeardySi wrote: »

Absolutely, shame you didn't mention any of that previously in the thread instead of going on about things that were nothing to do with your experience....

Report (I see you have already), move on and don't use them again.

Thank you :rolleyes:

Rodney Bathgate

BeardySi wrote: »

Absolutely, shame you didn't mention any of that previously in the thread instead of going on about things that were nothing to do with your experience....

Report (I see you have already), move on and don't use them again.

Fairly sure the poster mentioned the bad chicken (smell and colour) in the first line of the opening post.

Jim_Hodge

Rodney Bathgate wrote: »

Fairly sure the poster mentioned the bad chicken (smell and colour) in the first line of the opening post.

That was all though. Then quoted an anonymous review from Google. As it was put it was a one off case of a possible piece of bad chicken which would have been better dealt with by talking to the butcher. Only subsequent info made a better case for reporting them.

Darc19

I always think that chicken just out of a sealed wrap smells vile.

It's probably to do with the gas flushing which extends fridge life. It gives a rotten egg smell for a couple of minutes.

Same with cooked chicken in those deli packs.

After a couple of minutes it smells OK.


One problem is that the best before date that may be on a bulk package a butchers gets is no longer valid the minute the pack is opened and it reverts back to whatever the standard refrigerator life is.

stevek93

Darc19 wrote: »

I always think that chicken just out of a sealed wrap smells vile.

It's probably to do with the gas flushing which extends fridge life. It gives a rotten egg smell for a couple of minutes.

Same with cooked chicken in those deli packs.

After a couple of minutes it smells OK.


One problem is that the best before date that may be on a bulk package a butchers gets is no longer valid the minute the pack is opened and it reverts back to whatever the standard refrigerator life is.

It wasn't only smelling bad it was also grey in colour.