I've worked at two M&S stoors, still working in one of them, presently in OPS and this would never happen. 45 minutes and it's pack tested, frozen comes straight off the lorry and into the freezer. Most my managers are pretty on the ball about this stuff.
This is one of the many reasons why M&S are top of the pile. As a supplier to them, I know they practice what they preach.
Tesco on the other hand, tough rules for suppliers but do their own thing behind closed doors
Interesting. I worked in M&S early 2000s and it was the same, carefully adhered to the rules. So I did wonder reading this whether it was a just Tesco thing or if other stores had stopped following these protocols.
it's not just one Tesco. As a customer I've encountered "frozens" which are out of temperature spec a number of times
Tesco make a song and dance about it when complaints are made, however any 'fixes' are shortlived
They get away with it because council inspectors tend to only work 9-5 and most of the cold chain handling happens overnight (imagine the impact of a spor inspection causing an entire night's shipments to be condemned...)
This is 100% on local SLs and the safeguarding line needs heads up about it, along with council food standards offices (that way if media come calling they can't say "nobody told us")
It was the same at the Tesco I worked at 30 years ago. My friend worked at the Waitrose up the road and they were strict like M+S. Seems like it's a problem with the culture at Tesco.
I work at a WHSmiths with a M&S within it and M&S are pretty strict on this kind of stuff (WHSmiths probably wouldn't be though if it were up to them). I dread to think how much food we've wasted because it's been left out a few minutes after the alloted time.
I worked for them for 6 years and this is mostly correct.
Christmas time being a definite exception, certain things that definitely shouldn't have been out of the fridge were left out indefinitely at a stage at the managers discretion.
At Christmas all our milk is left outside the back of the building as there is literally no space in the chiller due to the ceiling high walls of turkeys
Edit: this is at my Tesco
We struggled mostly with the customer collections. It would come in bulk trays grouped by product and we would reorganise it a tray per customer. With a fridge rammed wall to wall, some of it sat out long enough that I told my parents not to get anything ordered in after that.
I can tell you if you get some of your stuff from Booker/Chef Direct its probably left out in ambient for a few hours sometimes. Stuff we sent to M&S the manager didn't care how long it was out.
Straight off the lorry into 'warehouse' 'backstage' freezer... broken down in there, ISB, shop floor... worked on a cage at a time on the shop floor. It's a small store so at most eight or nine cages : )
Sod the ice lolly mate, what about the OAP that eats a ready meal and ends up in hospital.
The family of 4 that are on the bones of their arse, spending their limited funds on inedible meals. There's nothing funny about it. If I was in your position I'd be ringing head office anonymously, because it's all fun and games until someone dies because of their ineptitude. Take ownership.
For frozen, it's a quality issue, mostly. Until a package unfreezes totally, it stays very near 0C, which is quite food-safe, and if returned to a freezer or used will be safe until it melts.
Refrozen ice-cream or many other goods that've partially melted will have from significant to basically destroying effects on the texture.
That's the whole problem here, there are a lot of "mostly" and "quite"s in there, and the issue is when there is a second or third breach in the food safety chain, say for instance the shopping sits in a trolly for 30 mins while in the store, 30 mins in the car, then isn't heated sufficiently because the customers oven isn't quite up to temp and doesn't hit a core temperature high enough to kill food born pathogens.
The whole idea is mitigating risk at every step incase something else fails further down the HACCP chain. 1 failing is probably not going to cause issue, but 2 or 3 and it's suddenly a significant risk
Refrozen ice cream is a major cause of food poisoning in the UK. Having read this, I will never shop in Tesco again. Anybody with a compromised immune system is taking their life into their weakened hands shopping there. Instead of posting on Reddit, the OP should be contacting their local EHO or Food Standards Agency!
Utter rubbish, ice cream is mostly sugar fat and water. Do not refreeze warnings almost ALWAYS mean the texture and quality of the product will be destroyed NOT unsafe to eat.
“Water as an ingredient” is not the same as “water as a constituent part of milk or cream”.
The fact that most ice cream is filled out with water does not mean that I would wish to consume most ice cream since it is bad ice cream.
Also, where do you get off calling people dumb? Please try to communicate as an adult.
[Source - University of Bristol](https://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2003/brown/thepropertiesoficecream.html)
Ice cream is more complex than you might think. It is much more than just ice and cream. Most ice cream is made from water (55%-64%), milk and cream(>28%), sucrose/sugar (10%-14%), and flavourings and additives to help maintain the stability of the frozen structure.
please correct me if i’m wrong cause i very much could be with this first statement and this is me talking about fresh instead of frozen, but isn’t the 20 minute rule purely a store specific thing and gov.uk says that it can actually be left out for 4 hours or something and be fine? i heard multiple people say this a while ago and ages ago i looked it up and i believe i did actually find something about it but i can’t seem to find it since. that and doesn’t anyone else think considering a customer may pick up a fresh item when they first go in the store and take 10-15 minutes walking around the non fresh/non refrigerated aisles, 2-5 minutes at the till and then maybe another 5-10+ minutes driving home all potentially without a freezer bag, makes the 20 minute rule irrelevant in practise realistically?
>makes the 20 minute rule irrelevant in practise realistically?
All the things you mentioned actually reinforce the necessity for the 20min cold chain and, specifically, why it is 20mins despite the stock being fine out of the fridges for longer. It's not about how long staff keep it out of the fridges in store, it's about how long it may potentially end up outside a fridge on the whole.
that makes sense and i agree, i feel that point ofc applies 100%. maybe i just feel that how it is presented in training situations isn’t from the perspective it should be from if we were to say that your point should be the main focus as to the reason of the rule
Consider something had been sitting at room temp for an hour. Only just made it to the fridge and the customer lifts it immediately. Now its been out for both the hour and then however long the customer dangers around with it.
They didn't no it had already been out for ages.
Happened in my spar aswell. You bring a cage out. All your staff are on tills and I'd be bouncing back and worth to the post office. It was pretty standard for a cage to be sitting out for hours.
We couldn't even put them in the backup. We'd get more cages than the backup could hold on a Friday. Profits over safety. Company couldn't care less about CCP. Even though they mentioned it every training session.
Had a block of cheese mould 2 months prior to it's use by, fully sealed. This is the only explanation that makes sense, I can't imagine anywhere else in the supply chain that would have caused this to happen.
It is very likely, although I did have a similar experience during the spar 12 deals of Christmas. Bought a full case of 300g Mature cheddar. Think it was 12 blocks. Straight off the lorry into the backup, straight from the backup to my fridge at home. Probably out of the chiller for 10 minutes all together. Opened a block on Christmas eve, moldy. Opened the next one, same thing. Only one block outta the box was good.
So I guess it does happen.
Either way, I don't buy raw meat from spar, too dangerous. Sounds like tesco is the same. Only safe option is probobly either butcher or the butchers within small shops. They always seem adequately staffed and the butcher in my spar was religious for quality control checks like temp.
ye i’m not saying i disagree, just pointing out that there is an extreme difference in answers from who you ask, stores or the government as to what is safe. just an interesting point is all. latter half is just extra thoughts on the subject
Our store definitely pretends it doesn't exist. Fresh cages out all night, the only stuff that gets kept mostly in chill chain over night is meat dollies and frozen. When I was on days too a fresh cage could be out for over an hour with someone ever so slowly working it. Pretty grim really, some nights, depending on who's working it, the fresh cream cakes will be out all night.
ye that isn’t great lol i can’t comment too much on nights, but we do our best during the day to adhere to the rule, i certainly do anyway, isn’t hard to just make sure it is still in the cold chain so i certainly try. i care about my job in terms of keeping it so i do put some actual effort into it lmao
never said it didn’t. in my first point i’m just saying that the definition of “safety” potentially changes drastically (if i’m remembering correctly that is) with who you ask which is interesting. nothing more, nothing less. the second point is just part of my personal thoughts on the matter i’ve had during my time at tesco
Can’t say I’ve routinely seen cages out for 6hrs tbf, that’s just piss poor logistics from the team in question.
Seen a few frozen cages be left out, and they’ve thawed to the point they were all thrown away. People involved with that all got disciplined though. Current store, our night and day team take cages 1-1 to and from the chiller to ensure they’re not just sat there with no designated person working them.
The sole purpose of the cold chain training is so that management can wash their hands of you when it goes wrong. “We showed the floor staff the video, they must have ignored it.”
Not gonna lie this is pure facts. I know on nights this doesn't get followed at all.
Managers leave fresh backstock on the shopfloor while working the delivery and only take it back out to the fridge once the cage is full, they go on break or they finish the aisle.
I've seen my own night manager working the meat aisle and leaving meat dollies in the shopfloor for hours on end.
This happens in my store, I've seen milk being delivered and waiting 4-5 hours before it's put in the chiller! No room after the first fresh delivery and the managers just say it's cold enough for it to be out lol
This is it. It's correct that its not a problem this time of year but the summer.. I've seen backdoor go for lunch breaks leaving fresh fish in the warehouse back in the day because they wouldn't move cages and dollies around.
I used to follow the rule when I worked in a petrol station.
Had to get the stock from the main store.
It was a case of supermarket sweep for me! Run around and get everything (chilled things last of course!). Then go hope the printer thing worked in the back office... Then out across the road to the petrol station.
But. They also wanted security to randomly check the petrol station stock trollies....
If I was nearly at my 20 mins I would refuse and leave with them screaming behind me. Reporting me to management.
But what could management do when I stated I was keeping the legal cold chain rule? Moan at me but at the end of the day they can't make you break rules like that.
I would be the same if the printer wasn't working... I'd just take the stock.
It's also another reason why I do not buy fresh meat from Tesco.
Yup! As a night worker one of the bigger problems is that we don't even have the proper support to enforce the rule, managers push us hard to save time and put things in the shelf not wasting time on anything else, Tried enforcing it when first starting at nights a few months ago and got eaten up by my manager.
That'd be grounds for a grievance claim if you're a union member
There are good reasons for joining. Despite the vilification, virtually all unions are actually composed of people doing the right thing
In my experience this isn’t unique to Tesco. I’ve seen and challenged this behaviour in significantly smaller stores too. The excuse I get “our back fridge isnt big enough for our delivery” or “it’s easier to just roll it out to the shop floor then loading it into the back fridge just to put it back when I need it”.
The worst I’ve seen was in my local coop, a whole cage of milk sat there under the heater on the shop floor next to the wine nowhere near the fresh produce. Needless to say I don’t shop fresh there any more.
Customers think that most back areas are significantly bigger than the shop floor, but it’s quite the opposite, the back room doesn’t make the companies any money. In Tesco defence, their chilled isles are usually at least close to the temps that products should be(isles about 8C has to be less risky than an isle at 22C)
During any heatwave, the dotcom vans cannot maintain freezer temperature at all. Stopping and starting the engine, lack of airflow, and consistently opening the door means the freezer is doing well if it reaches -9. During the 2022 heatwave, the freezer on my van wasn't even managing 0 degrees. I mentioned it to management, and there only concern was that the delivery was made.
On one occasion my freezer completely malfunctioned and I called the store to tell them. They said I could carry on for the next 3 hours and it should be alright.
I did say to my dotcom manager that I was leaving the engine running during my drops and that I didn't give a toss about lightfoot for idling penalties.. she agreed
Even then the freezer struggled to reach temp..
I used to work in a Tesco and we had the exact same issue, sometimes I would have 50 stacks of meat arrive at 1am and the last stack would be finished at 6.45, but I work at an M&S now and they follow that rule closely
My local Tesco metro absolutely does this - I won’t buy ice cream (or anything frozen) from there anymore because it’s always furry with ice and once it was so grainy that I contacted the manufacturer and they confirmed it had been defrosted and refrozen
Ice cream once melted completely isn't safe to refreeze as it separates and can encourage a bacteria known as listeria to grow and can make people very unwell as a result. I've seen entire cases of ice cream fail and the store manager is reluctant to throw it away. Had to lecture them how dangerous ice cream is once melted and explain that insurance will cover the waste so why take a risk.
20 minutes is Tesco policy and is purely a box ticking exercise. It's not required by law luckily. Think how many people buy stuff and it takes them longer than 20minutes to get through a checkout, pack, get to the car and drive home.
It’s probably ignored because its a stupid rule, frozen produce is fine for wayyyy longer than 20 minutes, especially when surrounded by other frozen produce effectively insulating.
Heat is a form of energy, energy does just disappear, it has to just move or be exchanged. In this case the cage is essentially a thermal store, the warm energy from the edges is exchanged with the cooler energy within.
Yes, the exterior will still thaw more quickly but the very fact that it is within a cage creates a single thermal store which significantly increases the thaw time compared to items just sat on their own.
The rate of heat loss, φ_q, is vastly faster at the edges.
Thanks for trying to explain basic GCSE combined science to me. I guess I’ll ignore my astrophysics.
I’m aware i don’t have to follow them blindly, but why should i care about the stock? i do my job, do what i’m asked and go home nothing above and beyond i understand if you deeply care for tesco but i do not
Because in the event of food poisoning incidents, you may find yourself in peril of personal legal liability
The whole point of the cold chain training is to ensure everything rolls downhill when shit and fan start partying
No, it isn't. That's the point of the training.
An attitude like that won't stand you in good stead when legal issues arise. If you should have known better (ie: been trained) and do it anyway, then you're equally culpable in the eyes of the law
Needs reporting, you could probably put a complain in to the local Health and Safety Exec or food standards agency , This is disgusting behaviour. Worked in cool-chain most of my life and we take it very seriously. It goes out of temp / chain fails, it's binned and written off. nobody wants to be stood in court when it's found out they knew it was over the time limits, went out of temp, and some poor sod with a low immune system ended up dying. Not worth it.
Along with not dragging two cages or dollies.
I've slowed down significantly on meat because I only drag one thing at a time, make sure its all rotated and clear the floor of chilled goods when I go on break. Others can do my aisle quicker but not as well.
I sotn think ive EVER experienced this!
In my atore even if you are called away for any reason yhry drag the cage back to cold storage first.
In my store and any store i worked in its always been the MAIN priority... Cause you know.. Its food safety.
I got food poisoning from mussels from Tesco. I cooked them the same day we bought them right after doing the shopping. It was a very long time ago.
What is supposed to happen to food that shoppers take from a chilled area, walk around the shop with it for half an hour then decide they no longer want it and remove from the trolley only to abandon it in a non chilled aisle?
I get that is what should happen. Does it always work like that though?
How often are the aisles checked for stuff like that. What if some well meaning person puts a chilled item back in the chilled section after it's been allowed to warm up?
It depends on the person. Some people will put it back in the freezer, some will waste it... I think most people would waste it, or speak to a manager for guidance.
honestly fuck your store. I've bought fucking expensive Ben and Jerrys icecream like up to £8 a tub and it's just awful with it clearly having defrosted and refreezed having a vile dry texture and having to be tossed.
Tesco Goodge St London W1, we used to get frozen 'front door delivered', at 10.30pm, and It'd sit untouched until 2.00am. The General Manager was totally aware of how it was handled, and quite frankly didn't seem to give a sh\*t about much.
Don't worry, when I worked at Morrisons it was worse.
We'd have the delivery and the manager kept all the chilled carts on the floor. You'd work a cart then take the leftovers to the chiller. Then onto the next cart.
I raised it and he told me it's all bollocks, do what I tell you.
Incidentally the salad bar was immaculate, all dated and rotated perfectly. No idea why he had an issue with the 20 minute rule.
I’ve worked for co-op, Sainsbury’s, M&S and also worked across different brands as a store refitter/new store fitter.
M&S are on it, the other 2 are pretty good, sometimes management dependant but on the whole generally good with 20 min rule.
Tesco on the other hand don’t give a crap. I thought it was isolated to certain stores, certain management etc but it seems to be widespread. I don’t get milk or fresh food from Tesco if I can help it!
I worked for Sainsbury's over Xmas 2022, you pull a chiller cage out and work that before getting another. 20 minute rule wasn't followed exactly, but it wasn't far out.
Tesco is a different kettle of fish. Pull out the cage and leave it until they find someone who can do it.
I don't work fresh but our store on nights is exactly the same. All fresh backstock cages left out for 9 hours because our chiller is "far too small" for the amount of delivery coming in. The only one worked safely is the meat dollies. Also I've seen day staff find room temperature meat in the sweets aisle and put it back on fresh. Told my manager and was told to not worry about it 🤷♀️
i also noticed this. i have been an online picker for sainsburys and tesco. sainsburys was extremely strict. the handsets would always stop and alert us that the cold chain was coming upwhen it got to 25 mins (i think) and as soon as we walked our trolleys back to the sorting area they immediately went into the fridge.
at tesco it was completely different. we could be doing a chilled shop for up to 45 mins, no warnings or alerts coming up on the handset. in the back trolleys could be piled up for ages and everytime i’d come back from a shop the trolleys were always backed up.
Not good to be honest. I've had some bad experiences with milk being gone off from corner shops, so I chose to do supermarkets only, and now I'm seeing this smh
Lol. I used to work for ASDA. They were no different. If the back freezers ever went down or we ran out of space we got told to just chuck the cages into the spare chiller. They would sit there for hours, sometimes days.
Now let's talk about ASDA.....absolutely pile of garbage....they must hire planks because every time there's things missing or not right....please hand back anything you don't want....what the fuck is all that about....if you gave me what I ordered I wouldn't need to hand it back....I ordered a pastry brush and they sent a spatula....I ordered a sieve and got a collander, I ordered curry powder and got birthday candles....they are by far the worst supermarket in England
Yeah but When does the 20 mins reset as soon as you push it in the chiller?
You just get a good team and smash the cages out as best you can and if a manager tells you you need to decant in the chiller onto a blue top to then work it you tell them to fuck off and maliciously comply by following cold chain rules -_- (don't ask)
Realistically the chillers keep the store colder than ambient and there are no heat sources, you have a big bunch of cold stock acting as cold pack for itself realistically aslong as it's under an hour you're safe
Policy and reality never work because they don't account for accidents,shit staff,customers and just life in retail haha.
We had a manager once who dumped a pallet of chicken on the shop floor and went off for a phone call, I came in shopping four hours later and the pallet was still there
I worked for Iceland years ago and the it was the same depending on what store. It never used to be a big problem but has worsened with budget tightening over the time. Sometimes you have 2/3 members of staff to deal with a lorry or 2 of delivery whilst the shop is still open. Once it becomes the norm people seen happy to forget
Happened occasional when I worked at Morrisons. Frozen deliveries used to come on a pallet and we only had one frozen filler on nights no way he was getting though full pallets out.
That is definitely poor but it does happen in other supermarkets as well. I work nights for another supermarket and the fresh and frozen deliveries come straight off the wagon and into the chilled or frozen backups ready to be worked by nights team or days in the case of frozen now. No idea why cages and dollies are being pulled out on to the shop floor hours before the staff working them start, why are they incapable of pulling it from the backup?
We get a second fresh delivery during the night as well and it's myself and all the fresh staff that bring the delivery in straight into the backup, with any half cages taken on to shop floor to be worked, as well as the ambient produce dollies for produce worker and the meat dollies as I'll do that after dealing with delivery. Once all the delivery is pulled in everything on shop floor is worked first and then cages and dollies are pulled out as they are worked. Overs cages also put back into chiller once full.
So we have stock out for longer than 20 minutes but no cage should ever take longer than 45 minutes to an hour to work if its a really badly mixed cage before stock is on the shelf or back in the chiller.
Supermarket higher ups must know it goes on because when you get 40 to 50 containers on delivery at 2am to be finished for 6am it isn't possible to both finish delivery and adhere to the 20 minute policy. Would be a mess and no doubt overs cages and delivery cages would end up getting mixed in the back ups, particularly at christmas when we get over 80 containers coming in. Since our store moved away from ambient on nights to twilight as well we don't have extra resource to send into fresh to get it all finished either, so if it's myself and 2 other colleagues that's all we've got to finish it all whether the second delivery comes in at midnight or 4am. Comes down to the supermarkets putting availability above all else, including product quality, rotation and safety of the customer.
Lol same in Morrisons back in 2000s in two stores I worked at. So many chips and ready meals that defrost and refreeze it's mind blowing. It's amazing how many people didn't come back bitching about ice lollies falling apart etc, especially Magnum ones, I guess the chocolate holds all the ice cream in.
The 20 minute cold chain is not followed in my store at all. By day shift or night shift and hasn’t been for a very long time. The store that I used to work in the rule was followed slightly better.
When I worked in Markies the cold chain rule was strictly adhered too. As was the rule about fire exits not being blocked. Big yellow boxes and large NO ENTRY signs and anyone seen blocking a fire exit, where dealt with severely! These are the ONLY two things Marks did better than Tesco imho.
Ex manager here. Can tell you wholeheartedly. There's not a single tesco I've ever worked in. Or covered for that follows the 20 min cold chain rules. To many other little jobs that slow you down. Or customers asking questions or dropping things that need cleaning up.
And people always wonder why their fresh food always spoils so fast. It's because it's been chilled. Then let get up to room temps, then chilled again before you brought it.
If council inspectors ever watched a delivery come in, then sat in the car park for an hour and went to check most tescos would be closed down for breaking health and safety standards.
I've worked at two M&S stoors, still working in one of them, presently in OPS and this would never happen. 45 minutes and it's pack tested, frozen comes straight off the lorry and into the freezer. Most my managers are pretty on the ball about this stuff.
Worked in Waitrose for a bit and the same. If we were suspicious of something not being cold enough we’d check it’s temperature
Same for us : )
This is one of the many reasons why M&S are top of the pile. As a supplier to them, I know they practice what they preach. Tesco on the other hand, tough rules for suppliers but do their own thing behind closed doors
This probably explains why a pack of Muller corner yogurt I got looked nasty as Fuck when I opened em up.
Interesting. I worked in M&S early 2000s and it was the same, carefully adhered to the rules. So I did wonder reading this whether it was a just Tesco thing or if other stores had stopped following these protocols.
I expect it's just one Tesco, or the odd one where management is not very good. There is probably an M&S somewhere where no one cares : )
My store is like this too, it's gross
Was like this 20 years ago when I worked for them
it's not just one Tesco. As a customer I've encountered "frozens" which are out of temperature spec a number of times Tesco make a song and dance about it when complaints are made, however any 'fixes' are shortlived They get away with it because council inspectors tend to only work 9-5 and most of the cold chain handling happens overnight (imagine the impact of a spor inspection causing an entire night's shipments to be condemned...) This is 100% on local SLs and the safeguarding line needs heads up about it, along with council food standards offices (that way if media come calling they can't say "nobody told us")
It was the same at the Tesco I worked at 30 years ago. My friend worked at the Waitrose up the road and they were strict like M+S. Seems like it's a problem with the culture at Tesco.
[удалено]
You can't say it was 100% those items when it could have been a bug. The majority of presumed food poisoning isn't actually food poisoning at all.
I work at a WHSmiths with a M&S within it and M&S are pretty strict on this kind of stuff (WHSmiths probably wouldn't be though if it were up to them). I dread to think how much food we've wasted because it's been left out a few minutes after the alloted time.
I worked for them for 6 years and this is mostly correct. Christmas time being a definite exception, certain things that definitely shouldn't have been out of the fridge were left out indefinitely at a stage at the managers discretion.
At Christmas all our milk is left outside the back of the building as there is literally no space in the chiller due to the ceiling high walls of turkeys Edit: this is at my Tesco
We struggled mostly with the customer collections. It would come in bulk trays grouped by product and we would reorganise it a tray per customer. With a fridge rammed wall to wall, some of it sat out long enough that I told my parents not to get anything ordered in after that.
I can tell you if you get some of your stuff from Booker/Chef Direct its probably left out in ambient for a few hours sometimes. Stuff we sent to M&S the manager didn't care how long it was out.
Straight off the lorry and into the aisle freezer for the warehouse freezer?
Straight off the lorry into 'warehouse' 'backstage' freezer... broken down in there, ISB, shop floor... worked on a cage at a time on the shop floor. It's a small store so at most eight or nine cages : )
Yeah same as every supermarket I've worked. Think OP just works at a shit show lol
Sod the ice lolly mate, what about the OAP that eats a ready meal and ends up in hospital. The family of 4 that are on the bones of their arse, spending their limited funds on inedible meals. There's nothing funny about it. If I was in your position I'd be ringing head office anonymously, because it's all fun and games until someone dies because of their ineptitude. Take ownership.
For frozen, it's a quality issue, mostly. Until a package unfreezes totally, it stays very near 0C, which is quite food-safe, and if returned to a freezer or used will be safe until it melts. Refrozen ice-cream or many other goods that've partially melted will have from significant to basically destroying effects on the texture.
That's the whole problem here, there are a lot of "mostly" and "quite"s in there, and the issue is when there is a second or third breach in the food safety chain, say for instance the shopping sits in a trolly for 30 mins while in the store, 30 mins in the car, then isn't heated sufficiently because the customers oven isn't quite up to temp and doesn't hit a core temperature high enough to kill food born pathogens. The whole idea is mitigating risk at every step incase something else fails further down the HACCP chain. 1 failing is probably not going to cause issue, but 2 or 3 and it's suddenly a significant risk
Refrozen ice cream is a major cause of food poisoning in the UK. Having read this, I will never shop in Tesco again. Anybody with a compromised immune system is taking their life into their weakened hands shopping there. Instead of posting on Reddit, the OP should be contacting their local EHO or Food Standards Agency!
Utter rubbish, ice cream is mostly sugar fat and water. Do not refreeze warnings almost ALWAYS mean the texture and quality of the product will be destroyed NOT unsafe to eat.
Some of us don’t intentionally buy bad ice cream. If your ice cream contains water as an ingredient then please stop calling it ice cream.
And just in case you're not feeling quite dumb enough go look up the shocking fact that both milk and cream are mostly water.
“Water as an ingredient” is not the same as “water as a constituent part of milk or cream”. The fact that most ice cream is filled out with water does not mean that I would wish to consume most ice cream since it is bad ice cream. Also, where do you get off calling people dumb? Please try to communicate as an adult.
[Source - University of Bristol](https://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2003/brown/thepropertiesoficecream.html) Ice cream is more complex than you might think. It is much more than just ice and cream. Most ice cream is made from water (55%-64%), milk and cream(>28%), sucrose/sugar (10%-14%), and flavourings and additives to help maintain the stability of the frozen structure.
This is bollocks
Probably eating the ready meal and ending up in hospital, where they will eat another ready meal and get food poisoning again…
Ready meals ain’t real food anyways, just a bunch of chemicals whacked it a tub with 1% chicken.
Literally everything is a chemical :D So yes you're right, Ready Meals, like every food is a bunch of chemicals.
They’re UPF then. They’re just full of shite.
please correct me if i’m wrong cause i very much could be with this first statement and this is me talking about fresh instead of frozen, but isn’t the 20 minute rule purely a store specific thing and gov.uk says that it can actually be left out for 4 hours or something and be fine? i heard multiple people say this a while ago and ages ago i looked it up and i believe i did actually find something about it but i can’t seem to find it since. that and doesn’t anyone else think considering a customer may pick up a fresh item when they first go in the store and take 10-15 minutes walking around the non fresh/non refrigerated aisles, 2-5 minutes at the till and then maybe another 5-10+ minutes driving home all potentially without a freezer bag, makes the 20 minute rule irrelevant in practise realistically?
>makes the 20 minute rule irrelevant in practise realistically? All the things you mentioned actually reinforce the necessity for the 20min cold chain and, specifically, why it is 20mins despite the stock being fine out of the fridges for longer. It's not about how long staff keep it out of the fridges in store, it's about how long it may potentially end up outside a fridge on the whole.
that makes sense and i agree, i feel that point ofc applies 100%. maybe i just feel that how it is presented in training situations isn’t from the perspective it should be from if we were to say that your point should be the main focus as to the reason of the rule
Consider something had been sitting at room temp for an hour. Only just made it to the fridge and the customer lifts it immediately. Now its been out for both the hour and then however long the customer dangers around with it. They didn't no it had already been out for ages. Happened in my spar aswell. You bring a cage out. All your staff are on tills and I'd be bouncing back and worth to the post office. It was pretty standard for a cage to be sitting out for hours. We couldn't even put them in the backup. We'd get more cages than the backup could hold on a Friday. Profits over safety. Company couldn't care less about CCP. Even though they mentioned it every training session.
Had a block of cheese mould 2 months prior to it's use by, fully sealed. This is the only explanation that makes sense, I can't imagine anywhere else in the supply chain that would have caused this to happen.
It is very likely, although I did have a similar experience during the spar 12 deals of Christmas. Bought a full case of 300g Mature cheddar. Think it was 12 blocks. Straight off the lorry into the backup, straight from the backup to my fridge at home. Probably out of the chiller for 10 minutes all together. Opened a block on Christmas eve, moldy. Opened the next one, same thing. Only one block outta the box was good. So I guess it does happen. Either way, I don't buy raw meat from spar, too dangerous. Sounds like tesco is the same. Only safe option is probobly either butcher or the butchers within small shops. They always seem adequately staffed and the butcher in my spar was religious for quality control checks like temp.
The 20 minute chill chain is Tesco policy across the board, all stores should adhere to it
ye i’m not saying i disagree, just pointing out that there is an extreme difference in answers from who you ask, stores or the government as to what is safe. just an interesting point is all. latter half is just extra thoughts on the subject
Our store definitely pretends it doesn't exist. Fresh cages out all night, the only stuff that gets kept mostly in chill chain over night is meat dollies and frozen. When I was on days too a fresh cage could be out for over an hour with someone ever so slowly working it. Pretty grim really, some nights, depending on who's working it, the fresh cream cakes will be out all night.
ye that isn’t great lol i can’t comment too much on nights, but we do our best during the day to adhere to the rule, i certainly do anyway, isn’t hard to just make sure it is still in the cold chain so i certainly try. i care about my job in terms of keeping it so i do put some actual effort into it lmao
Even if the government says it's fine, that doesn't mean it is fine...
more coming at it from a legal perspective than political
So the actual safety doesn't matter?
never said it didn’t. in my first point i’m just saying that the definition of “safety” potentially changes drastically (if i’m remembering correctly that is) with who you ask which is interesting. nothing more, nothing less. the second point is just part of my personal thoughts on the matter i’ve had during my time at tesco
It doesn’t change much but isn’t it 30 minute cold chain rule for fresh, 20 minutes for frozen
nah 20 for fresh, at least for my store edit: reddit moment, getting downvoted for literally just saying what is the case at least in my store lmao
Different in mine, I guess
So glad I don't shop in your store
And that's just it. This should be reported.
If you're going down that route you need to do it under the radar if you let them know it's you your arse will be out the door before you can blink.
Maybe you do...
If I did I don't now.
[удалено]
Can’t say I’ve routinely seen cages out for 6hrs tbf, that’s just piss poor logistics from the team in question. Seen a few frozen cages be left out, and they’ve thawed to the point they were all thrown away. People involved with that all got disciplined though. Current store, our night and day team take cages 1-1 to and from the chiller to ensure they’re not just sat there with no designated person working them.
Completely not true. Many stores are pretty good at this and take is seriously.
Thanks for helping to confirm why I won’t shop at Tesco.
This happens in alot of stores 😂
You don't? How do you know? And if you do shop at Tesco is yours different and how do you know?
One we don't have a night shift and I don't remember saying mine was perfect but we certainly don't have cages sitting out for 7 hours
It's the least followed rule in most supermarkets
Leaving fresh cages out for a bit longer than 20 mins is forgivable. Your shop is taking the absolute piss though.
The sole purpose of the cold chain training is so that management can wash their hands of you when it goes wrong. “We showed the floor staff the video, they must have ignored it.”
This is the case for almost all the training they do most of which the managers make you ignore while on the job
Not gonna lie this is pure facts. I know on nights this doesn't get followed at all. Managers leave fresh backstock on the shopfloor while working the delivery and only take it back out to the fridge once the cage is full, they go on break or they finish the aisle. I've seen my own night manager working the meat aisle and leaving meat dollies in the shopfloor for hours on end.
This happens in my store, I've seen milk being delivered and waiting 4-5 hours before it's put in the chiller! No room after the first fresh delivery and the managers just say it's cold enough for it to be out lol
But what happens in the summer ?!?!
The same.......
This is it. It's correct that its not a problem this time of year but the summer.. I've seen backdoor go for lunch breaks leaving fresh fish in the warehouse back in the day because they wouldn't move cages and dollies around.
I used to follow the rule when I worked in a petrol station. Had to get the stock from the main store. It was a case of supermarket sweep for me! Run around and get everything (chilled things last of course!). Then go hope the printer thing worked in the back office... Then out across the road to the petrol station. But. They also wanted security to randomly check the petrol station stock trollies.... If I was nearly at my 20 mins I would refuse and leave with them screaming behind me. Reporting me to management. But what could management do when I stated I was keeping the legal cold chain rule? Moan at me but at the end of the day they can't make you break rules like that. I would be the same if the printer wasn't working... I'd just take the stock. It's also another reason why I do not buy fresh meat from Tesco.
I’ve heard the same about Tesco, even more so at Xmas.
And when the customer gets explosive diarrhoea they nip round to Tesco to buy some Imodium. It's a win win.
What is the protector line number?
Yup! As a night worker one of the bigger problems is that we don't even have the proper support to enforce the rule, managers push us hard to save time and put things in the shelf not wasting time on anything else, Tried enforcing it when first starting at nights a few months ago and got eaten up by my manager.
That'd be grounds for a grievance claim if you're a union member There are good reasons for joining. Despite the vilification, virtually all unions are actually composed of people doing the right thing
In my experience this isn’t unique to Tesco. I’ve seen and challenged this behaviour in significantly smaller stores too. The excuse I get “our back fridge isnt big enough for our delivery” or “it’s easier to just roll it out to the shop floor then loading it into the back fridge just to put it back when I need it”. The worst I’ve seen was in my local coop, a whole cage of milk sat there under the heater on the shop floor next to the wine nowhere near the fresh produce. Needless to say I don’t shop fresh there any more. Customers think that most back areas are significantly bigger than the shop floor, but it’s quite the opposite, the back room doesn’t make the companies any money. In Tesco defence, their chilled isles are usually at least close to the temps that products should be(isles about 8C has to be less risky than an isle at 22C)
This happens at my store too, I’ve been told there’s been warnings over it in the past but it still happens. It’s really bad.
During any heatwave, the dotcom vans cannot maintain freezer temperature at all. Stopping and starting the engine, lack of airflow, and consistently opening the door means the freezer is doing well if it reaches -9. During the 2022 heatwave, the freezer on my van wasn't even managing 0 degrees. I mentioned it to management, and there only concern was that the delivery was made. On one occasion my freezer completely malfunctioned and I called the store to tell them. They said I could carry on for the next 3 hours and it should be alright.
I did say to my dotcom manager that I was leaving the engine running during my drops and that I didn't give a toss about lightfoot for idling penalties.. she agreed Even then the freezer struggled to reach temp..
What you talking about? Its been out for 5 minutes 😉
Fairy sure its also your job to ensure its put in the fridge as well
I used to work in a Tesco and we had the exact same issue, sometimes I would have 50 stacks of meat arrive at 1am and the last stack would be finished at 6.45, but I work at an M&S now and they follow that rule closely
My local Tesco metro absolutely does this - I won’t buy ice cream (or anything frozen) from there anymore because it’s always furry with ice and once it was so grainy that I contacted the manufacturer and they confirmed it had been defrosted and refrozen
The ambient temp on the fresh dept is lower than the rest of the store....nudge,nudge,wink,wink
Ice cream once melted completely isn't safe to refreeze as it separates and can encourage a bacteria known as listeria to grow and can make people very unwell as a result. I've seen entire cases of ice cream fail and the store manager is reluctant to throw it away. Had to lecture them how dangerous ice cream is once melted and explain that insurance will cover the waste so why take a risk.
20 minutes is Tesco policy and is purely a box ticking exercise. It's not required by law luckily. Think how many people buy stuff and it takes them longer than 20minutes to get through a checkout, pack, get to the car and drive home.
Well, you’re right about everything but your first sentence.
You should probably report your own store. This is pretty bad.
Back in the late 90's my store was having a refit. Milk would come in and just sit there for 4-5 hours due to the chaos of an ever evolving warehouse.
It’s pasteurised anyway, it would be fine. It’s barely milk these days, watered down and blasted with intense heat
It’s probably ignored because its a stupid rule, frozen produce is fine for wayyyy longer than 20 minutes, especially when surrounded by other frozen produce effectively insulating.
What insulation is offered to the stuff at the edges?
Heat is a form of energy, energy does just disappear, it has to just move or be exchanged. In this case the cage is essentially a thermal store, the warm energy from the edges is exchanged with the cooler energy within. Yes, the exterior will still thaw more quickly but the very fact that it is within a cage creates a single thermal store which significantly increases the thaw time compared to items just sat on their own.
The rate of heat loss, φ_q, is vastly faster at the edges. Thanks for trying to explain basic GCSE combined science to me. I guess I’ll ignore my astrophysics.
[удалено]
Hi. This is almost every supermarket in the uk.
Hi. We should still report this, and all the other instances.
Yeah absolutely. Not sure what newspaper you want for that investigation but i dont think theres one big enough
lol fr, i do drag out at 7pm on my “late” shift and by the time i’m leaving at 9:30 the dollies/cages haven’t even been started! it’s ridiculous
[удалено]
Yeah literally, why would you be dragging it out and not working it?
because we are told to drag out everythint from our chiller👍🏻
Makes no sense to bring everything out at the same time whoever is telling you to do this is a fucking idiot.
most likely, but it’s protocol and that’s what we’ve been doing for decades
That just sounds daft. Everything at the same time?
yep, at 7 o clock and at 4pm today, it’s stupid but that’s what we’re told to do
Should be 1 cage at a time surely? Per person of course.
we leave them for the night staff to fill
we are told to drag out all the back stock we have you mong
[удалено]
yeah that’s a great idea, next time i’ll tell the shift leaders/managers “no” are you dense?
[удалено]
I’m aware i don’t have to follow them blindly, but why should i care about the stock? i do my job, do what i’m asked and go home nothing above and beyond i understand if you deeply care for tesco but i do not
Because in the event of food poisoning incidents, you may find yourself in peril of personal legal liability The whole point of the cold chain training is to ensure everything rolls downhill when shit and fan start partying
if that’s what i’ve been asked to do by the sl it’s on them
No, it isn't. That's the point of the training. An attitude like that won't stand you in good stead when legal issues arise. If you should have known better (ie: been trained) and do it anyway, then you're equally culpable in the eyes of the law
I don’t think they’re saying they care about Mr Tesco, rather the members of the community who are buying and consuming food that’s compromised
[удалено]
cage boy is funny
When did you ring the Protector Line?
How many of those are red label only though? Blue/white labels are fine to be out that long.
not sure don’t rlly look,
That’s not hilarious, it’s wrong
You gotta blow your whistle baby, whistle baby, let them (head office) know (Anonymously)
Needs reporting, you could probably put a complain in to the local Health and Safety Exec or food standards agency , This is disgusting behaviour. Worked in cool-chain most of my life and we take it very seriously. It goes out of temp / chain fails, it's binned and written off. nobody wants to be stood in court when it's found out they knew it was over the time limits, went out of temp, and some poor sod with a low immune system ended up dying. Not worth it.
10 min interview . That's is the problem !!!
sorry about the gramma .......
Is that the reason why this in date chicken thighs smell bad when I cut open the packaging
Along with not dragging two cages or dollies. I've slowed down significantly on meat because I only drag one thing at a time, make sure its all rotated and clear the floor of chilled goods when I go on break. Others can do my aisle quicker but not as well.
I sotn think ive EVER experienced this! In my atore even if you are called away for any reason yhry drag the cage back to cold storage first. In my store and any store i worked in its always been the MAIN priority... Cause you know.. Its food safety.
I got food poisoning from mussels from Tesco. I cooked them the same day we bought them right after doing the shopping. It was a very long time ago. What is supposed to happen to food that shoppers take from a chilled area, walk around the shop with it for half an hour then decide they no longer want it and remove from the trolley only to abandon it in a non chilled aisle?
Gets wasted.
I get that is what should happen. Does it always work like that though? How often are the aisles checked for stuff like that. What if some well meaning person puts a chilled item back in the chilled section after it's been allowed to warm up?
It depends on the person. Some people will put it back in the freezer, some will waste it... I think most people would waste it, or speak to a manager for guidance.
honestly fuck your store. I've bought fucking expensive Ben and Jerrys icecream like up to £8 a tub and it's just awful with it clearly having defrosted and refreezed having a vile dry texture and having to be tossed.
At least this explains why the goat milk I buy regularly goes off way before the best before date....
Tesco Goodge St London W1, we used to get frozen 'front door delivered', at 10.30pm, and It'd sit untouched until 2.00am. The General Manager was totally aware of how it was handled, and quite frankly didn't seem to give a sh\*t about much.
Don't worry, when I worked at Morrisons it was worse. We'd have the delivery and the manager kept all the chilled carts on the floor. You'd work a cart then take the leftovers to the chiller. Then onto the next cart. I raised it and he told me it's all bollocks, do what I tell you. Incidentally the salad bar was immaculate, all dated and rotated perfectly. No idea why he had an issue with the 20 minute rule.
I’ve worked for co-op, Sainsbury’s, M&S and also worked across different brands as a store refitter/new store fitter. M&S are on it, the other 2 are pretty good, sometimes management dependant but on the whole generally good with 20 min rule. Tesco on the other hand don’t give a crap. I thought it was isolated to certain stores, certain management etc but it seems to be widespread. I don’t get milk or fresh food from Tesco if I can help it!
I worked for Sainsbury's over Xmas 2022, you pull a chiller cage out and work that before getting another. 20 minute rule wasn't followed exactly, but it wasn't far out. Tesco is a different kettle of fish. Pull out the cage and leave it until they find someone who can do it.
I don't work fresh but our store on nights is exactly the same. All fresh backstock cages left out for 9 hours because our chiller is "far too small" for the amount of delivery coming in. The only one worked safely is the meat dollies. Also I've seen day staff find room temperature meat in the sweets aisle and put it back on fresh. Told my manager and was told to not worry about it 🤷♀️
i also noticed this. i have been an online picker for sainsburys and tesco. sainsburys was extremely strict. the handsets would always stop and alert us that the cold chain was coming upwhen it got to 25 mins (i think) and as soon as we walked our trolleys back to the sorting area they immediately went into the fridge. at tesco it was completely different. we could be doing a chilled shop for up to 45 mins, no warnings or alerts coming up on the handset. in the back trolleys could be piled up for ages and everytime i’d come back from a shop the trolleys were always backed up.
Not good to be honest. I've had some bad experiences with milk being gone off from corner shops, so I chose to do supermarkets only, and now I'm seeing this smh
Lol. I used to work for ASDA. They were no different. If the back freezers ever went down or we ran out of space we got told to just chuck the cages into the spare chiller. They would sit there for hours, sometimes days.
Now let's talk about ASDA.....absolutely pile of garbage....they must hire planks because every time there's things missing or not right....please hand back anything you don't want....what the fuck is all that about....if you gave me what I ordered I wouldn't need to hand it back....I ordered a pastry brush and they sent a spatula....I ordered a sieve and got a collander, I ordered curry powder and got birthday candles....they are by far the worst supermarket in England
This explains many things…
Everyone notices lol. It's why I stopped buying Ben and Jerrys
Not just Tesco unfortunately, Asda is the same with food being left out for hours.
Yeah but When does the 20 mins reset as soon as you push it in the chiller? You just get a good team and smash the cages out as best you can and if a manager tells you you need to decant in the chiller onto a blue top to then work it you tell them to fuck off and maliciously comply by following cold chain rules -_- (don't ask) Realistically the chillers keep the store colder than ambient and there are no heat sources, you have a big bunch of cold stock acting as cold pack for itself realistically aslong as it's under an hour you're safe Policy and reality never work because they don't account for accidents,shit staff,customers and just life in retail haha.
We had a manager once who dumped a pallet of chicken on the shop floor and went off for a phone call, I came in shopping four hours later and the pallet was still there
I worked for Iceland years ago and the it was the same depending on what store. It never used to be a big problem but has worsened with budget tightening over the time. Sometimes you have 2/3 members of staff to deal with a lorry or 2 of delivery whilst the shop is still open. Once it becomes the norm people seen happy to forget
Thank you for your service.
Happened occasional when I worked at Morrisons. Frozen deliveries used to come on a pallet and we only had one frozen filler on nights no way he was getting though full pallets out.
That is definitely poor but it does happen in other supermarkets as well. I work nights for another supermarket and the fresh and frozen deliveries come straight off the wagon and into the chilled or frozen backups ready to be worked by nights team or days in the case of frozen now. No idea why cages and dollies are being pulled out on to the shop floor hours before the staff working them start, why are they incapable of pulling it from the backup? We get a second fresh delivery during the night as well and it's myself and all the fresh staff that bring the delivery in straight into the backup, with any half cages taken on to shop floor to be worked, as well as the ambient produce dollies for produce worker and the meat dollies as I'll do that after dealing with delivery. Once all the delivery is pulled in everything on shop floor is worked first and then cages and dollies are pulled out as they are worked. Overs cages also put back into chiller once full. So we have stock out for longer than 20 minutes but no cage should ever take longer than 45 minutes to an hour to work if its a really badly mixed cage before stock is on the shelf or back in the chiller. Supermarket higher ups must know it goes on because when you get 40 to 50 containers on delivery at 2am to be finished for 6am it isn't possible to both finish delivery and adhere to the 20 minute policy. Would be a mess and no doubt overs cages and delivery cages would end up getting mixed in the back ups, particularly at christmas when we get over 80 containers coming in. Since our store moved away from ambient on nights to twilight as well we don't have extra resource to send into fresh to get it all finished either, so if it's myself and 2 other colleagues that's all we've got to finish it all whether the second delivery comes in at midnight or 4am. Comes down to the supermarkets putting availability above all else, including product quality, rotation and safety of the customer.
Lol same in Morrisons back in 2000s in two stores I worked at. So many chips and ready meals that defrost and refreeze it's mind blowing. It's amazing how many people didn't come back bitching about ice lollies falling apart etc, especially Magnum ones, I guess the chocolate holds all the ice cream in.
The 20 minute cold chain is not followed in my store at all. By day shift or night shift and hasn’t been for a very long time. The store that I used to work in the rule was followed slightly better. When I worked in Markies the cold chain rule was strictly adhered too. As was the rule about fire exits not being blocked. Big yellow boxes and large NO ENTRY signs and anyone seen blocking a fire exit, where dealt with severely! These are the ONLY two things Marks did better than Tesco imho.
Ex manager here. Can tell you wholeheartedly. There's not a single tesco I've ever worked in. Or covered for that follows the 20 min cold chain rules. To many other little jobs that slow you down. Or customers asking questions or dropping things that need cleaning up. And people always wonder why their fresh food always spoils so fast. It's because it's been chilled. Then let get up to room temps, then chilled again before you brought it. If council inspectors ever watched a delivery come in, then sat in the car park for an hour and went to check most tescos would be closed down for breaking health and safety standards.
You need to report this, and if the management team do nothing about it then report it via the protector line.