M&S and Asda were left outraged just before Christmas after some of their own-label stuffing products were subject to an FSA recall having been redistributed without their knowledge – and strictly against their policies on surplus stock – to a chain of butchers in Norfolk.
The FSA claimed the products posed a risk of food poisoning because they had had their use-by dates extended, may not have been kept under the correct temperature control and were subject to labelling and traceability contraventions.
The FSA made it clear Asda and M&S were “not involved in the distribution or facilitation of the incident”, and products on sale in the two supermarkets were not affected. So what exactly happened?
The products involved in the recall – own-label pork stuffing made for Asda and M&S by Finnebrogue – were sold to Nicholls Meat back in November 2015, Nicholls owner Michael Wright claims. As part of the sale, he adds, it was agreed the products could be given a 12-month shelf life extension if kept in deep freeze.
“This is not uncommon in the food industry. We have six stores so the volume was too great for one year and needed to last the full 12 months,” Wright says. “We paid just under £7,000, and all products we used had use-by dates of 30 December 2015 so we were happy.”
The remaining product was stored at Nicholls coldstore in Hemsell, Wright claims, but when 60 cases were removed for sale this Christmas, staff discovered half had a use-by date of December 2014. “We immediately put this product on hold in store,” says Wright.
During this time, the business was visited by a Suffolk Environmental Health Officer, who seized all 60 cases of the product despite the fact the cases with a 2014 use-by had been put on hold and the remainder had a use-by date of 30 December 2015 “so were under the life extension as we thought correct,” he adds.
Wright claims the EHO later said the product was okay to use as long as ‘do not refreeze’ was put on the label, but the issue was then elevated to the Norfolk EHO, who discussed the matter with Wright and Finnebrogue in a conference call, and agreed the product with a 2015 use-by date could be defrosted in a chiller and given five days of life or sold frozen with a ‘do not refreeze’ label.
“We turned this down because at this late stage before Christmas we could not defrost in the chiller, only ambient. The Norfolk EHO then suggested using it for Easter but at this point I had had enough and decided to voluntarily destroy all the stuffings in store and at Hemswell,” says Wright. He insists Nicholls did nothing wrong” and is now seeking legal action over the FSA recall notice.
Sold without knowledge
Wright isn’t the only one to consider legal advice. Finnebrogue says the products were sold on by a consultant who worked for the company at the time, and none of its authorised personnel provided “any product shelf life extension or usage instructions for product on sale”. It’s now urgently investigating with the help of the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit to establish what happened. “This transaction was the first sale of our products to a third party to occur in our company history,” a spokesman says, adding the sale of branded own-label products to third parties is against company policy.
“We take very seriously the integrity of our products and we do not sell products to third parties which are below our good quality standard. We are working with the FSA crime unit regarding the ongoing investigation into how these circumstances arose.
“The FSA is continuing to investigate these matters and we are seeking legal advice in relation to any damage caused to our business. We are conducting our own investigations into how these foods were supplied.”
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