My complaint:
I have a food complaint. Tesco Card No 634004 0243 0527 0540
Hello,
On Saturday I purchased 3 Roast Whole Chicken – Oven Roasted chickens from Trowbridge Tesco store- the products were dated 2nd 3rd April. There weren’t any chickens with a date in March.
I have a very restricted diet and chickenturkey are the only meats I can eat hence I tend to eat around one whole Tesco Oven Roast Chicken per day.
Yesterday, on starting to cut the chicken into slices for use during that evening and today, I noticed an unpleasant smell; once I tasted the chicken, it had a strange taste whilst chewing and also left an aftertaste like the smell of the chicken.
I will today be taking all three chickens back to the local Tesco.
I wonder what you inject into them? Is it healthy? Is it safe to eat? I had a snack with some of the chicken around 7.30pm last night and woke in the night with an upset stomach which has continued into today.
I recall a period last year when the cooked chickens were again having a strange smell and taste but it has not happened for a while.
I buy 2-3 chickens every 3 days because of my diet and I always buy Tesco’s as they are normally succulent and enjoyable to eat cold. However, with these three chickens – yes I have had to open them all to check them – as well as the smell and taste, the chicken legs and thighs are quite damp and I have to put a kitchen cloth on the slices to dry them out. On the breast, the lower part of the breast is also damp (damper than the thighs) and I had to throw this part of the chicken away as I didn’t feel it was going to be healthy to eat. Now that I have an upset stomach I definitely know they should not be eaten and are a danger to the public.
I can only presume you are injecting the chickens with something to keep them moist? Whatever it is, on occasions the balance is wrong, and too much is being injected for it to cause a funny smell and taste plus very wet chicken breast, thigh, and leg and causes purchasers to have upset stomachs.
All of this is very off-putting, especially as they upset my stomach, and I will be now be purchasing chickens from MS; they aren’t as succulent as yours but they don’t have the strange smell or taste or are too damp nor give me an upset stomach.
As I said, I regularly purchase a whole cooked chicken a day at around £5.35 each (dependent on which store) £37.50 per week approx, or £1,947- per annum.
I returned the three chickens to the manager at the Frome Branch who asked me where I purchases them – Tesco, Trowbridge – but I live in Frome and it was Tesco Express, Frome where I purchased the items. The manager said she would take then and give me a refund but in future I need to return items to the place they were purchased, as ‘it goes against their store’.
I would be interested in receiving your comments.
Regards,
Patricia Howarth
Suggested solution:
1. Look into how their chickens are cooked and what additives are used.
2. Make it much easier for customers to lodge a complaint - I could not find anywhere to enter details of my complaint - it just sent me round the houses returning to the same page, which was to start all over again.
3. Respond to my letter.
