Found plastic strip inside frozen chicken tender

rhythm90

So.... without naming names etc... I just discovered what appears to be a piece of a seal of a bottle, a little plastic strip, inside a chicken tender I was eating... Home cooked, from the freezer kinda jobby...

Anybody else ever have an experience like this? Just curious how you dealt with it?

Wondering what my rights are here as I have emailed the supplier in question via their website and am expecting them to try and roll me over with a standard response when they get in contact.

Can anybody advise?

I am especially pissed as the household has a ten year old who eats these regularly and it could have been a serious incident had they swallowed this. Or me for that matter.

Thanks!

ARNOLD J RIMMER

What outcome are you expecting?

I'm sure they will apologize and conduct an internal investigation maybe asking for a picture of the plastic piece.

whippet

what do you actually want?

nobody was harmed fortunately.

With processed foods this is always something that may happen.

If I were you i'd let their customer services know . give them as much detail from the packaging (batch number etc) so they can do a recall in the unlikely event there maybe something else in the same batch.

wonski

You can also contact hse and send them the product. They will contact the supplier who will have to follow up and conduct full investigation.

There might be a bad batch out there or just a single incident.

dudara

The food processor will take this fairly seriously. It could point to some issue in their manufacturing process that they are not yet aware of.

If you can provide them with batch numbers, details etc from the packaging that will help.

These things do happen. It’s impossible maintain a perfect process. Thankfully, there no injuries, and you can play your part by reporting it..

rhythm90

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

Which is my right...

I'm curious what kind of protocol a food company would have if such a situation were to arise.

Trasna1

rhythm90 wrote: »

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

Which is my right...

I'm curious what kind of protocol a food company would have if such a situation were to arise.

I don't understand why you would go on the offensive straight off the bat, without at least first giving the manufacturer the opportunity to deal with the issue.

You seem to want a confrontation?

Deub

If you are a genuine worried customer, you would want them to review their process, find the root cause and fix it. You would be happy enough with an apology and assurance that it shouldn't happen again to anyone.

However if you are just an opportunist, you would want money and not really care how it happened and/or if it was fixed.

wonski

rhythm90 wrote: »

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

Which is my right...

I'm curious what kind of protocol a food company would have if such a situation were to arise.

No need to escalate it to social media tbh

As soon as you report it they will take it from there. If you don't trust the supplier contact hse

Your call anyway, but those Facebook posts serve no purpose tbh.

People will either start reposting them all over the place and threatening all range of their products or start calling you bad mother for feeding 10 year old with frozen chicken pulp. You have been warned I have seen it happening before.

The food complaints are taken seriously and lead to product recalls if a manufacturing fault is found.

Posting food complain on social media makes these complaints look less serious than they really are.

ARNOLD J RIMMER

rhythm90 wrote: »

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

Which is my right...

I'm curious what kind of protocol a food company would have if such a situation were to arise.

And when you do that. Then what do you want?

Sleeper12

My wife had something like this happen. Not chicken though. It was a porridge type thing. She returned the bit of plastic with batch numbers and all that along with a cover letter explaining that she wasn't looking for anything & just wanted to warn them in case they needed to recall the product. She got a hamper with some of their products & a bit of a snotty letter. They said that they don't use this type of plastic & insisted that it didn't come from their factory.

If it didn't enter the packaging in their factory then it could only have been my wife who opened the packed put it in. That's how I read their reply.

brightspark

Sleeper12 wrote: »

My wife had something like this happen. Not chicken though. It was a porridge type thing. She returned the bit of plastic with batch numbers and all that along with a cover letter explaining that she wasn't looking for anything & just wanted to warn them in case they needed to recall the product. She got a hamper with some of their products & a bit of a snotty letter. They said that they don't use this type of plastic & insisted that it didn't come from their factory.

If it didn't enter the packaging in their factory then it could only have been my wife who opened the packed put it in. That's how I read their reply.

I worked in a factory once, the quality person came to me with a piece of plastic, I immediately identified it as a filter from a kettle. (obviously it fell into the bowl when they poured the hot water in, it wasn't from our factory and couldn't have got through the process intact).

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/715rkQ9a90L._SY355_.jpg


Trust me, the complaints are investigated, and sometimes it is part of the equipment.

Sleeper12

brightspark wrote:

I worked in a factory once, the quality person came to me with a piece of plastic, I immediately identified it as a filter from a kettle. (obviously it fell into the bowl when they poured the hot water in, it wasn't from our factory and couldn't have got through the process intact).

The plastic came out of a sealed bag of dry porridge. It was a single serving. You have a tear the paper packed to get the porridge out. She saw it come out. 100 percent the plastic was in the bag The letter was insulting and would put her off reporting something again.

brightspark

Sleeper12 wrote: »

The plastic came out of a sealed bag of dry porridge. It was a single serving. You have a tear the paper packed to get the porridge out. She saw it come out. 100 percent the plastic was in the bag The letter was insulting and would put her off reporting something again.

It can happen, there are usually various parts that become broken or fall from a machine into a package, or even come in with the raw ingredients, I am surprised they didn't write a more tactful letter with a few vouchers for your inconvenience.

Plastics unlike metal are difficult to detect in the product at any stage.

893bet

At least 100k OP. Go for it.

Won’t someone think of the children.

fineso.mom

rhythm90 wrote: »

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

Which is my right...

I'm curious what kind of protocol a food company would have if such a situation were to arise.

Well, it's your choice rather than your 'right'.

brightspark

rhythm90 wrote: »

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

A problem you will have is defining "them" the same factory that produced those tenders is probably producing the tenders for a range of other brands.

Xterminator

Hi Op

surely the aim is to prevent this from happening to other people?

If so sharing on social media as your 1st move won't achieve this. It would possibly hurt the manufacturer financially, which i hazard a guess is your aim.

The right thing to do is contact manufacturer with all the details & packaging and let them investigate. And if your not happy with the results of that investigation, by all means take it public.

Just wouldn't be my 1st course of action if you know what i mean.

rhythm90

Spoke with the company anyway, they were gracious - as was I, no fire! They're taking back the product to check the batch as some had suggested.

Seems I was having a bad day yesterday!! Thanks for the replies

Sleeper12

Xterminator wrote:

If so sharing on social media as your 1st move won't achieve this. It would possibly hurt the manufacturer financially, which i hazard a guess is your aim.

Unless I missed something OP made a point of not naming the company involved. If I don't know what company how can it be hurting them financially?

I think this happens to all companies at some point in time.

ARNOLD J RIMMER

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Unless I missed something OP made a point of not naming the company involved. If I don't know what company how can it be hurting them financially?

I think this happens to all companies at some point in time.

?

rhythm90 wrote: »

Well being honest I have a mind to share the brand and image of the piece of plastic inside the half eaten chicken tender on social media to warn people not to purchase from them in future.

Which is my right...

I'm curious what kind of protocol a food company would have if such a situation were to arise.

Xterminator

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Unless I missed something OP made a point of not naming the company involved. If I don't know what company how can it be hurting them financially?

I think this happens to all companies at some point in time.

Hi

i think you handled this well in the end. you were perhaps a little annoyed when you posted 1st.

What i meant was if you went to social media and named and shamed the company that would hurt them financially, and that IMO that should not be your 1st course of action. so i suggested you give them a chance to address/rectify situation before taking that action, which is exactly what happened.

hope that clarifies.

rubadub

The fsai site has a current list of food alerts

https://www.fsai.ie/news_centre/food_alerts.html

No chicken tenders on it -yet.

Hoboo

I bought a plastic bottle the other day, and it had a piece of chicken tender in it. Spooky.

Nolimits

When I was a child I bit into a burger and found a piece of wood. My Mam brought it back to the retailer, who took her information and passed it onto the manufacturer.

All I really remember is a man in a van coming out to the house. He started talking apologising etc and barely took a breath in the ten minutes he was talking. Then he gave us a heap of burgers, sausages and rashers and left.