Chicken Memorials

[CatsCube]

This reminds me slightly O/T but an old friend of mine has colieacs disease, and bought some sausages in tesco, they were their own brand, it didnt say on the ingredience if they contained rusk so she asked a member of staff, explaining the situation, she was assured they didnt contain rusk at all, and so bought them.

 

She then ended up in hospital, as they did indeed contain rusk and made her very ill. She wrote a letter of complaint and never heard back.

 

Never trust staff to tell you the truth, at the end of the day even if they do know the answer to your question, they are trying to sel you something so will do what ever it can to get you to buy or get you off their case.

 

I do like the sound if this Willow Farm stuff though, sounds like a good compromise between ethics and price. I wonder if they di it or something like it at Asda. I do ind it very hard to find stuff that isnt either a fortune, finest, organic free range type thing or utter "Ooops, word censored!", its so hard to find a middle ground compromise.

[Martin B]

I know somebody who lives on Willow Farm,

 

Best not to identify that person Martin.

 

That's OK Egluntine - 'Tis me!! - I was going to post anyway.....

 

 

[Guest]

The staff in your local Tesco probably don;t know the difference between free-range and barn-reared.

 

It was the Butcher counter staff I asked, who then went & checked with a menber of management

 

I have to be honest with you here - I used to work for Tesco, and I can guarantee that (especially at this time of the year) the guy behind the butchers counter won't have been a trained butcher (they had ME working behind the butchers counter one Christmas Eve because the butcher had phoned in sick, and the only training I was given was how to cut a steak. Having a had some basic kitchen training made me the most qualified person instore to deal with the counter, on the busiest day of the year), and unless the Counters manager was on duty, the manager he asked would have probably been no better trained on the difference between free range and barn raised chickens than the cleaner.

 

Supermarket staff are there, being paid a very basic wage, and being treated like utter poo. That includes the Tesco managers (I can't talk for other supermarkets). If you want a well-trained, knowledgable member of staff, selling good quality meat then you MUST go to a 'proper' butcher. Well trained butchers are a godsend, but very few and far between in supermarkets.

[Guest]

Incidentally, I was not trying to defend Tesco, just give an explanation. The pressure from the head office onto the managers to produce sales figures and stock results create an atmosphere instore where that is the only thing that is cared about, and the vast majority of customers who shop in places like supermarkets only care about getting all their shopping for the lowest price possible. They don't give a stuff where things come from, how they are reared, or how the staff who work bringing them the products (from the farms to the supermarket) are treated.

 

And yes, all supermakrets will try and use deceptive packaging, to lull people into that nice cosy feeling that all is good with their worlds, as they hand over their hard earned cash to a corporate giant.

[Cinnamon]

I can guarantee that (especially at this time of the year) the guy behind the butchers counter won't have been a trained butcher

 

Sorry, but he is

He has worked there for ages & I know him (as a butcher) quite well

He is the only trained Butcher in the store.

[Martin B]

Just look at battery egg packaging.

 

You get ones with nice golen sunshine, a crowing cockerel lots of grass and then in the small pring 'eggs from caged hens' very clever.

 

You get the packaging stuff all the time. If you look at sausauges, great british flag, nice green fields. I bet they didn't live in those fields.

 

Chickens are the best to do it with. Old fashioned colour schemes (oak) leaves, fields, sunshine.

 

Verry clever to be honest. Can't help but defend the supermarkets. Always read the packaging.

 

Martin

[chelsea]

along the same sort of subject -

 

I e mailed a shopping channel a while back because the presenter kept announcing the chickens they were selling in a meat hamper as "grade A, top choice, farm assured chicken"....he kept harping on and on about it and almost insinuating that it was free range or organic as some innocent customers wont know the difference to be honest. I stated in the e mail that if its free range it should state free range and by blowing the trumpet that it was grade A - that it wasnt anything other than standard chicken.

 

I also complained he kept saying the lamb was "free range".....it didnt state this on the product details but again, i feel they were trying to swerve the customer in thinking Free range lamb was the same as organic....which some people may do and also when have you ever seen a lamb that ISNT free range!!!!

 

I never got a reply and had no intention of buying it...but I hate to think of people being misled.

[One Man Banned]

This thread swerving to the packaging has more than a little whiff of the Heinz "Farmers Market" soups about it doesn't it.

 

The only way to ever know is to read things very carefully and not just go on the "look" of something, like said if ever a complaint was made they would only state that "it doesn't say so on the label"

 

After going to the Organic food fair in Bristol I spoke with the Grove Fresh juice people who said that Tesco's have a contract that their juice will be in ALL stores but they moved everything around in ours with a huge juice section. The Grove Fresh juice was removed from sale but in it's place went Tesco's Organic juice in a black carton like the Grove Fresh one, but it's made from concentrate - which we don't like

 

I mentioned the conversation I had with Grove Fresh and a week later, guess what was back on the shelves at my local Tesco's

 

Same with their Organic Range, it got spread out across the store "to make your products easier to find in relation to their category - milk with milk and bread with bread etc"

It was only ever a ploy to reduce the actual range they offer now as it's not all in one place to see readily.

 

They're crafty beggars are those merchandisers

 

A

xx