Frozen meat bought from Aldi, purporting to be fresh

[bimbo123456]

Hello all
Yes, I know cheap meat should be avoided but we are on a tight budget. Anyway, I purchased three packs of bargain pork chops from Aldi yesterday. Some time later when I finally returned home (after doing the rest of the shop at Sainsbury!) I discovered that the parts when the chops interleaved was frozen, not completely, enough to be quite unsuitable for freezing as I intended. I took the meat back and the manager of the store was very apologetic, giving me a complete refund, bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine. My question is this. Has anyone else had similar experience? I am now not confident of buying meat to freeze from this shop.

[knowabit]

i thinks alot of shops have meat that is previously frozen. i have often picked up chicken breasts in Sainsburys that are a bit frozen round the edges!

[Hettster]

No I have never had a similar experience . . . . i have always found aldi to be very good and I am impressed by the manager response . . . in so much as she/he gave you more than just a simple refund.

[Mick-Talbot]

no, never. Aldi shops are kept spotless, i wouldn't let this put you off.
The employees work harder than employees of say Asda, morrisons.

[bimbo123456]

Knowabit, it is OK to have meat that is frozen if you are going to use it soon, but when you want to freeze it surely this is unnacceptable? My understanding is that it is quite dangerous to refreeze meat?

[woofgang]

If I am buying meat to freeze I always ask the shop if it has previously been frozen.

[tiggerblue10]

I haven't had any experience with Aldi (none near me) but I do have issues with Lidl. I had a box of forzen cod fillets in breadcrumbs from there and they had bones, skin and scales still in them. I know that sometimes its not always possible to get every single bone out of a fillet but they could at least have removed the scales and skins before coating them in the breadcrumbs.

[woofgang]

I bought premium fish fingers from M and S that had skin under the breadcrumbs. They went back the next day.

[bimbo123456]

Woofgang, the pack had freezing instructions....Hettster, I was also impressed with the manager's reaction, Mick-T I don't see that you can comment on how hard all employees of every other supermarket work. Aldi till workers used to have to know all the prices but don't any more.

[scotman]

^^^^^

Am I the only one who thinks 'premium fish fingers' is an odd phrase?

[Mick-Talbot]

Mick-T I don't see that you can comment on how hard all employees of every other supermarket work.


don't you? I do.

[woofgang]

Nope, the premium ones are a piece of cod fillet sliced into thick strips...not supposed to be any skin there.

[woofgang]

bimbo it sounds like bad storage then...

[pastafreak]

I have seen packages of meat that are labelled as 'previously frozen'...that then go on to state that due to the freezing methods-they can then be frozen at home.
I assume industrial freezing methods are so fast that the chance for bacteria to grow is slim.
Was there any small print on the package?

[RATTER15]

Scotsman, I think premium fish fingers come from fish with premium hands.

[paddywak]

I worked for ten years in the food industry in a cake factory, and to freeze the smaller party size cakes we used a system which so I was told was identical to the one Birdseye used for many of their fish products and it consisted of a wire belt running in an up and down spiral through a blast freezer the speed of the belt and temperature which could be as low as -30 determining the freezing time. The average time for a party size cake from going in soft to coming out rock hard being abot 10min

[starone]

Fish fingers are usually just odd bits of fish left over from doing other cuts. Good way of using them up for the sellers but not necessarily for the buyers.

[mike11111]

To me the word fillet means no bones, not necessarily no skin.

[dotty.]

Aldi check out staff used to have to be at work for 12 hours but only got paid for the time they actually spent on the tills as far as I have gathered from people who have worked there in the past. That is why they are on a much higher hourly rate that many other retail workers. It may have changed now though,

[NoMercy]

Deputy/Assistant managers are on nearly £30k.