Spar :-(

[melv16]

My local coop has recently been taken over by Spar. I bought a prick and ping chicken jalfrezi a couple of weeks ago. On opening I discovered that it contained only 2 pieces of chicken. Emails were sent and I was compensated.
The curry cost me £2-79.
What compensation did I receive?

[melv16]

My nearest Waitrose is 3mls away. So, as the Spar is only 100yds from my house I chose the nearest. The co-op used to stock Mumtaz curries, which were excellent.

[davebro]

Talking ready meals - Aldi's Wiltshire Cured Ham Gratin is very good. About £2.69 I think.

[smurfchops]

That’s what you get when you go to Spar. Go to Waitrose or M&S for decent takeaways. Even Tesco or Sainsbury’s!!

[melv16]

It was a last minute buy due to unforeseen circumstances.

[smurfchops]

By the way, Waitrose ready meal curry is British chicken. The last time I looked, Tesco and Sainsbury's chicken is from Thailand!!!

[cashier]

The luxury range at Iceland are very good, in my opinion, better than M and S. £2.69 or two for £5.

[webbo3]

A meal for two at your local Indian restaurant

[melv16]

I did notice that the chicken in the Spar curry was sourced from Thailand and Brazil. I mentioned it my emails and got the usual patter about it being responsibly sourced etc.

[Buenchico]

To be pedantic, your local Co-op shop hasn't been taken over by Spar because Spar don't directly operate any shops. It will be an independent retailer that's taken on the business and who has chosen to sign up to selling under the 'Spar' brand name, thus committing to buying stock from Spar and honouring their promotions. (i.e. Spar is a so-called 'symbol group', operating in the same way that Budgens, Londis, Mace and Nisa do. They don't own any stores).

So your contract was with the owner of the shop, not with Spar, and its that store owner that you should have complained to (and sought redress from).

I doubt that you'd have had much better luck getting any form of compensation from the your Co-op anyway. My experience of moaning to my local Co-op (e.g. about sending out discount vouchers so that they arrive on or after their expiry date) has never got me anything more than a very half-hearted apology.

[Buenchico]

The standard meat content of almost every ready meal (from almost every retailer) appears to be 80g (= 2.8 oz), which is what's meant to be in Spar brand Chicken Jalfrezi
https://www.spar.co.uk/deals-and-groceries/ready-made-foods/meals/other/spar-chicken-jalfrezi-with-pilau-rice-450g
So perhaps you'd no right to complain anyway?

(I started taking note of the meat content of ready meals quite a few years ago, when I decided to try to save some money by cooking for myself and I wanted a guideline as to how little meat I could get away with in a meal that was supposed to be meat-based. It was then that I came to realise that almost every manufacturer puts 80g of meat into almost every ready meal; it seems to be accepted as the standard meat content. When I was really hard up, I learned to cut that down to 50g of, say, 'value' mince but these days I usually put around 120g of meat into each meal I make, which is 50% more than I'd get in a ready meal).