Liz, I have been reporting those supermarkets to Trading Standards and
Public Health on the first instance of them putting cooked and raw meat in
the same bag, in fact raw meat with anything else. I also have written to
the chief executive of the company concerned about the standard of their
staff who put eggs in with tins, and asking him to train staff in the reason
why people have gluten free products and the health risks to customers of
substituting gluten containing products for gluten free.
Whenever I've complained to Sainsburys, they've usually told me to go away,
but have given me a few thousand Nectar points to do so; at least I get
something out of it. At one time it got to the point where the manager would
go for coffee if he saw me enter the store. I don't suffer fools.
My best was in the early 70s when supermarkets were just getting going and
Tesco opened a store in the town I was then living in. It was long before
the huge distribution centres, and food was packaged at the back of the
store. I bough two quarters of frozen chicken and some fresh lambs liver. I
cooked the liver and found it wasn't lamb's liver at all - it was pig's
liver, and we can't stand the pappiness of pig's liver. Mistake I thought,
never mind I'll give it to the dog. Then the next day I defrosted the
chicken, rinsed it, cooked it in the oven and, when we came to eat it, found
that we had two quarters of chicken, two quarters of giblets and two
quarters of plastic bag that the giblets had been packed in. A whole frozen
chicken had been quartered and repackaged. I'd fed most of the liver to our
dog, but had kept a some back to give him the next day. But having found the
problem with the chicken, kept it and called Trading Standards as well as
writing to Tesco head office. Don't know if they still do it, but then the
manufacturing companies would offer prizes to the manager of any store of
any chain who could sell the most of their product. When Tesco investigated
they found that, when the store was closed, the manager at that store had
built a false wall out back and it was filled with boxes of a dry product.
The company producing the product was offering a sailing dinghy to the
manager who could sell the most of their product. This manager wanted it and
had been ordering loads and recouping the money by repackaging and
relabelling other products. I gave evidence in court, he was jailed and I
got the best and freshest meat for a month, delivered (in the days before
they delivered) to keep me quiet. It didn't. Trading Standards investigated
as well, but I never heard what they did.
Never set foot in Tesco again until we moved here 15 years ago, but stopped
because, on a couple of occasions, I saw a rat at the back of the store when
I drove out of their car park, and the milk aisle stank. They said it was
continental cheeses, but it was stale milk where the cleaner would mop up
spilt milk by spreading it around the floor and under the racks of milk
instead of actually washing the floor. If it's not clean on the shop floor,
what's it like in the storage area where the public don't go? The I slipped
on a grape because the staff in the greengrocery section were too lazy to
pick up droppings. My doctor said not to push it too much because he
couldn't tell what was a result of the fall and what was because of my RA,
but I got GBP100 from them. Stopped going there again, but went back a few
years ago when I used to take a blind neighbour shopping until he died, and
that was where he wanted to go, but I only bought a few branded products
while I was in there.
Very happy now with Waitrose, which is clean, the products are good but no
dearer than other supermarkets unless you choose their more expensive
ranges, the staff are all happy and very willing to help and where you have
the choice of going to shop yourself and taking it home with you, shopping
yourself and have them deliver, have them shop and you go and collect, or
have them shop for you and they deliver.
Jean in Poole, Dorset, UK
To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace-chat [email protected]. For help, write to
[email protected]. Photo site:
http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003/albums/most-recent
