Iceland frozen food recall

MarkR

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/food-safety-authority-issues-iceland-with-notice-to-recall-frozen-animal-products-1489881.html

So, that's pretty much everything in the shop, bar the tinned foods?

That is going to hit the balance sheet something awful.

200mg

So Due to Brexit ?

phormium

That's pretty drastic alright!

I only have veg from there in the freezer luckily, bought some turkey back at Easter, too late now it's long eaten!

Overheal

“To date, while we have no reports of any illness associated with implicated products from Iceland Ireland stores, in the absence of the company providing valid and correct traceability documentation as required by the law, we have to take a precautionary approach to best protect consumers, as we cannot be fully confident of the traceability and safety of these imported frozen foods of animal origin.

"As a precaution, we are therefore advising consumers not to eat imported frozen food of animal origin bought from Iceland Ireland stores since March 3rd, 2023.

"Foods of animal origin are any food products that contain ingredients that come from an animal, such as chicken, meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, etc.

"It is the legal responsibility of any food business importing food into Ireland to make the correct import declarations for the food they are importing.

"All food businesses must also have full traceability information on the food they are importing, producing, distributing and selling. Due to these breaches of food legislation and in the interest of consumer protection, this action has been taken."

So the food didn't go through the right bureaucracy...

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719955#Comment_120719955

No, the food was devoid of all traceability. It didn't go through proper and necessary checks.

L1011

New owners not doing paperwork right isn't surprising considering they seem to be incapable of paying their staff the correct amount.

MarkR

There was already stories about staff not getting paid after some ownership change. This could drive them out altogether.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719993#Comment_120719993

UK parent would probably re-buy the Irish operations in that case; just like they did when the first franchiser started closing the bulk of the stores about ten years ago. Only sold it off again last year.

BattleCorp

Apart from the fact that it's made with very very cheap ingredients, there's essentially nothing wrong with the food. It's the same stuff that the Brits eat. This is a paperwork issue, i.e. they didn't follow all the legal rules for importing food into the EU.

I wonder what the shops will sell while they sort out the tracability issues and the other paperwork issues?

Overheal

If its not fit for human destruction it could be fed to livestock but that could raise a whole new slew of issues that I don't think anyone wants to re-live, if livestock picked up a communicable disease through the lack of traceability.

10-10-20

Yet another brexit benefit from the Tories!

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-benefits-of-brexit

28064212

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120719955#Comment_120719955

...yes? Obviously? That's literally the whole point of food safety legislation: to ensure that companies have to jump through hoops to force them to comply with minimum standards. Why? Because corporations have shown, over and over and over again, that they cannot be trusted. The European continent learned this lesson decades ago.

Someone didn't do their job, and now the company are going to have their bottom line hit. The next time, the company will make sure the job gets done, because the consequences of not doing it are worse than the consequences of taking a chance on it

RobbingBandit

I remember loads of their chicken having south east Asia and Brazil listed as countries of origin

buried

Unfortunately a lot of people here probably rely on this foreign kip to purchase certain foodstuffs.

Here be the lesson.

Don't ever rely on any of them for anything.

Mervyn Skidmore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720026#Comment_120720026

I'm not sure if cows eat pizza.

J.O. Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720026#Comment_120720026

Probably not a good idea.. ...Remember BSE

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720053#Comment_120720053

That's what I was alluding to.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720043#Comment_120720043

They'll eat just about anything, even skittles and beef.

Polar101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720038#Comment_120720038

They're pretty difficult to rely on - if you ever happen to find something that's nice, you can bet the next time you go there it's out of stock and/or replaced with something else. Absolutely useless logistics.

Also, this notice by FSAI is a bit of a joke - "btw, don't eat anything you bought in the last three months". Maybe next time they could be a bit faster?

wench

Lack of proper traceability is how we got the horse meat scandal ten years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal

Overheal

Yeah, on balance I would probably just destroy the food. Damn shame.

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720086#Comment_120720086

They used to feed stale bread from Supermarkets to pigs here. They didn't even bother taking it out of the wrappers. The pigs ate the wrappers and all. Not exactly great for the food chain given the dyes etc. on the packaging.

Not sure what it's like in the US but lots of food production here is a race to the bottom. Do it as cheap as possible, and unfortunately that often leads to dangerous shortcuts.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720250#Comment_120720250

How long was that going on for??? Did heads roll? Way to get plastic and forever chemicals into the irish bloodstream right.

In the US always assume it's worse:

https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/2022/07/80-of-cow-and-pig-meat-blood-and-milk-contains-plastic/

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120720038#Comment_120720038

The Green agenda is to reduce agri production in Ireland and in the EU .

It follows that more of this rubbish will be imported from outside the EU so we won’t know what we will be eating .

BattleCorp

@Overheal It's a good while ago now but it happened and was going on for many years before it came to the attention of the authorities. This article says one supplier was doing it but I know anecdotally that others were doing it too as I worked in a meat factory back in the day.

I can't find any evidence of a prosecution so, being Ireland, I'd guess no heads rolled.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/poison-pork-panic-irish-pigs-364423

Doodlebug

The Iceland Ireland (.ie) site is defaulting to the .co.uk domain now. Not a great sign!

Hopefully they get back on track, great for offers re: soft drinks, etc. as well as ice creams you can't get anywhere else, not to talk of the staff already affected by the recent changes in ownership.

tesla_newbie

I’ve never stood foot in an Iceland

Hotblack Desiato

The whole ROI Iceland chain went into receivership yesterday. Not surprised.

FishOnABike

Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving! How many more subsidiaries of UK companies operating here are likely to go the same way?

Boardnashea

Are they closed now?

Cat2022

Will miss them. I liked the UK brands

BattleCorp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120749966#Comment_120749966

It wasn't only Brexit. There were problems before the FSAI issue. The staff were having difficulties getting paid for a good few months.

But yeah, Brexit did cause them problems. It shouldn't really have though, all they had to do was comply with the legislation which wasn't that difficult. Aldi, Lidl, Dunnes, Supervalu, Tesco etc. all have no issues complying with the legislation.