BBC Reporter Exposes Britain's Top Supermarket Chains

BBC Reporter Exposes Britain's Top Supermarket Chains

www.dailymail.co.uk

Whatever your view about the increasing might of the supermarkets, the benefits are obvious: They are open all hours, have a huge selection and - most importantly - they can be a lot cheaper than smaller retailers.

This is what attracts 16 million customers to Sainsbury's and 20 million to Tesco every week. Yet it seems that there can be a price to pay for such convenience.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 5/22/2007 by shots]

[edit on 24-5-2007 by UM_Gazz]

Nice to see we have some good investigative reporters out there. This story is long overdue and needs to be told, the chains should be exposed for their dirty practices and that applies to the US as well., they all practice the same tricks.

www.dailymail.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

This applies to ALOT of retailers, especially food related ones. I used to wash dishes at a diner when I was a kid, and I will not eat in a diner to this day due to what I saw go on in that kitchen.
It's a shame, but there are so many things that go on behind closed doors which effect the populations lives which are questionable at best.

Originally posted by lombozo
This applies to ALOT of retailers, especially food related ones. I used to wash dishes at a diner when I was a kid, and I will not eat in a diner to this day due to what I saw go on in that kitchen.

Sorry but I think you missed the point here. There is a difference between a grocery store and a diner, you are tying to compare apples to oranges and it will not work.

Diners or restaurants if you will are required by law to dispose of old/outdated food. Grocery stores are no at least that is my understanding
Now I want to make it clear I am talking about products that have dates on them

[edit on 5/22/2007 by shots]

Originally posted by shots
[edit on 5/22/2007 by shots]

Actually shots, I think lombozo is trying to add another angle to the story, that being the careless disregard of rules and regulations set about by the law, as well as how different facets of the food service industry like to cut corners. In the story, the reporter is quoted as saying

My colleague, James Griffin, witnessed steak that was past its use-by date and illegal to sell being turned into mince at Tesco.

I don't think he's arguing against you shots, but just trying to bring something else to the table.


As for lombozo, I used to work at a rather "upscale" (after witnessing what went on in back, I use that term mockingly) Italian restaurant that had an obvious disregard for rules and regulations about any number of things involving food and cooking practice. I'm weary of eating out a lot more now.

[edit on 22-5-2007 by Weirdoradio2]

Originally posted by Weirdoradio2

Actually shots, I think lombozo is trying to add another angle to the story, that being the careless disregard of rules and regulations set about by the law, as well as how different facets of the food service industry like to cut corners.

Yes irealize there is more then one angle to the story. I was just trying to stay on the topic of grocery story stores,.

That news report is a pretty good read for any one who has not looked at it yet. I do think restaurants should be included in peoples concerns for the safety of the food they are eating.
However in the end when there is a question of peoples safety or the almighty quid, the quid will always be the winner.

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by Weirdoradio2

Actually shots, I think lombozo is trying to add another angle to the story, that being the careless disregard of rules and regulations set about by the law, as well as how different facets of the food service industry like to cut corners.

Yes irealize there is more then one angle to the story. I was just trying to stay on the topic of grocery story stores,.

Sorry for re-directing your thread there. Certainly wasn't the intention. Here in the US, there have been some stories recently of grocers adding a chemical to meat to make it appear fresh for extended amounts of time - even after the 'sell by' date had passed.

Originally posted by lombozo

Sorry for re-directing your thread there. Certainly wasn't the intention. Here in the US, there have been some stories recently of grocers adding a chemical to meat to make it appear fresh for extended amounts of time - even after the 'sell by' date had passed.

No problem, I understand why and what your intention was I just thought it would be better to stick to the supermarkets to avoid confusion because restaurants do not sell shelf goods, everything they sell is prepackaged or deli style. Yes I know th4re are some exceptions but feel there is no need to mention them i.e. veggies that are understood.

On the dated meats I had not heard of the chemical adding but I have read abut them putting labels over old labels or actually opening the package turning the meat over and then repackage it with a new date.

One of the newer tricks I have noticed is not rotating the products on the shelf but to inter mix newer datews with older dates on purpose hoping I assume that you might look at one can check the exp date and say good everything in front is current when it is not.

Shots - cool.

Here is a link about making older meat look fresh.

Meat

Good find, Shots Such exposure by the media can only be to consumers' benefit and I hope millions of consumers become more aware as a result of the journalist's findings.

Most consumers have experience of the filthy practices of retailers, I suspect. It's become a lot worse since the 'Bottom Line' philosphy took hold a few decades ago. Since then, customer service in all areas has sunk through the ground.

In Australia, until a couple of decades ago, shonky retailers were promptly dealt with by a mostly dedicated Health Department. Then, in a move that makes no sense at all, the government sacked most of its Health officers. One of them, who'd spent his life in the game, went public and took tv cameras around various food retailers, pointing out the dangers. What watchers were shown was sickening and was across the board, from butchers to restaurants. The sacked Health Dept. officer predicted that cases of food-poisoning would increase by hundreds of percent. In all instances shown on tv, the retailers apologised profusely, said the offences of which they were guilty were 'mistakes' and 'one offs' and that from now on, they would be vigilant about 'slack employees' etc. But it was clear they were terrified the exposure to such a wide tv audience would cost them dollars. Their excuses weren't convincing.

As the Health officer predicted, cases of food poisoning soared and continued to soar. I suspect only a tiny fraction are reported by the media.

In one tragic instance, people died after consuming salami, some of them children. The tv news showed the survivors in hospital: it was unbelievable -- they looked as if they'd been attacked by the flesh-eating bug. One woman who was genuinely beautiful before this incident, as shown in 'before' photos, lost her legs and her nose and had to have extensive skin grafts on the rest of her. She said her children were too terrified to go near her for ages. The manufacturers of the infected salami were fined, but the amount they had to pay seemed ridiculously small and they basically swaggered in front of the media's cameras at the same time people had lost loved ones because of them, or would be scarred inside and out for life.

A doctor stated on tv that even after one case of food-poisoning, a person's intestinal flora are changed forever. In other words, even if the sickness seems mild and the person recovers after a few days, they are permanently affected.

Years ago, as a favour to a friend, I worked as cashier in their friend's modern butcher's shop in a new shopping mall. I was only there for a few weeks but I've never forgotten. Once a day, a truck arrived at the back of the shop. It was filthy and stank. A man who didn't speak much English used to drag the large tubs onto the truck. After a few days, I learned the tubs were filled with things that were unsaleable, things that were rotten or fit only to be discarded.

I thought the man with the truck was feeding this mess of stuff to pigs or taking it to the refuse tip or something and didn't give it much thought.

In the cold-room, hanging on a hook was a pig's head. It was so rotten, it was a green colour. It was sickening to see.

The head-butcher told the other butchers to throw the pig's head in the tubs to be collected by the truck, but they kept forgetting. By this stage, the head was covered all over in dripping slime, as well as being green.

Finally, someone remembered to throw it in the tub, but by then it was the weekend, so it sat in the tub for another couple of days.

When the man with the truck arrived, one of the older butchers went to the tub and removed the rotten pig's head, saying it was 'too far gone for words'. But the truck driver disagreed and snatched back the filthy thing and put it back in the tub. The old butcher tried to explain, but the language difficulty hampered him. He was trying to tell the truck driver that the head was rotten, through and through.

The truck driver shook his head and carried on, saying in effect the thing was 'good'. Finally, the old butcher walked back into the shop, shaking his head. At that point, I asked what the stuff in the tubs could possibly be used for, because it was filled with old, stinking meat and all the fat that had been cut off cuts of meat, plus stuff that had been dropped on the floor, etc. It was garbage. I hated to think even of pigs having to eat the stuff. On top of that, the tubs were disgustingly filthy and were never washed or anything. Old dried blood, looking as if it was months old, was all over the insides of the tubs, and flies buzzed around in their thousands while the tubs were sitting outside waiting for the truck to arrive.

The old butcher looked at me in a way that showed how sickened he was --- and told me the truck driver made SALAMI and other cold-cuts from this filth ! I couldn't believe it.

The old butcher then told me that the truck driver had told him the green, dripping-with-rot pig's head would be 'great' for ADDING FLAVOR to the stuff he made !

I'd never been a cold-cuts fan, but after that, I couldn't even look at the stuff, no matter how nicely presented, without remembering that foul pig's head. When I had kids, I warned them to never eat salami or any of those sorts of meats at other kids' parties or when visiting friends. Same goes with 'frankfurters' and similar sausages. Because according to the old butcher, the man with the truck manufactured all that type of foodstuff from the filth he collected from butcher's shops.

I remembered the pig's head when I saw that poor woman who'd had her legs amputated after eating infected (POISON) salami.

At the time of that mass-food-poisoning incident, even pizzas which had salami topping were withdrawn from sale.

But of course, people forget after a few months and go back to eating that sort of thing again.

The deli-section of our new, local supermaket is a seething sump of germs, I avoid it altogether now. Nice uniforms, yes, but the basically untrained staff scratch their heads two second before sticking their hands into a pile of chicken breasts and ham slices. And the most disgusting of all was one of the older staff spoke to a customer as he was scooping up ricotta for her --- and I SAW a fragment of chewed food from his own mouth fly into the woman's ricotta ! I don't know if she noticed, but he did. He just wrapped cling-wrap over the container and handed it to her with a big smile. Ergggggggh !

Dock6 from the sound of it they need to completely revise the whole food industry down under. Most of what you noted that takes place down under does not in the US at least . Here Deli Clerks wear head coverings and only handle food with baggie gloves on to prevent what you described.

Also our stores no longer get the whole carcass, some do but most do not so the heads etc were never have a chance to rot because the heads and other parts are sorted at slaughter with only packaged meats going to stores. This does vary though in real small towns i.e. ND where you take your own animal to a slaughter where they cut it up and return all usable parts that you want back to you again packaged and more then likely frozen.

Ihave always been under the impression your stores were more modern but either I missed something or was wrong

----
lombozo does not surprise me at all that they would use carbon monoxide in packaging although I wonder how they keep it from spreading in the slaughter/packaging plants? If not contained in the package tht stuff can kill yah