Arrogant butchery manager- Bothasig Branch

Good day.

I just had the most horrible experience dealing with the butchery manager Mr. Lil at the Food *****s Bothasig branch.

I am a chef that does dinner service for my clientele. I always buy at Food *****s because of the freshness and quality I can trust.

Today I purchased 4 trays of chicken pieces from this store. After getting home and I started to prep for my dinner service, I opened the chicken and it had a strong pungent smell as if it was left out for too long and about to go bad. I would never use sub standard products so I wrapped it up packed it away and had to go to my local checkers to purchase more chicken at a higher price per kg because I was pressed for time.

At around 5pm I went back to the store to return the chicken and spoke to the manager at the till. She then said we need to go speak to the Butchery manager who happened to walk by at the time so she called him.

I explained the above situation and also expressed how this kind of incompetence affects me as a chef not only monetary but also with my time. He then got triggered for some reason and opened the chicken saying there’s no smell and nothing wrong with it and started getting aggressive in front of customers and staff.

I told him I will report this to head office and he said I must go ahead and report it to whoever I want and that nothing will happen to him. He then started shouting saying there’s something wrong with me and not the chicken and in front of everyone screamed that maybe I stink and not the chicken. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing come out of a manager’s mouth, I turned to the staff who were thoroughly embarrassed and asked them if they are listening to this, they just shook their heads.

I frequent this store daily for my stock but I won’t anymore as long as you have managers with disgusting attitudes like this working there. Food *****s should train their managers in customer care and how to handle customer conflict.

I am extremely disappointed at what I experienced today at this store and would a formal apology from this manager.