Rotten Chicken Schnitzel

On the 16th of October 2020, I bought groceries at PnP The Glen only to get home and discover that the discounted Chicken Schnitzels were rotten (both trays). The following day I went back to the store to return them, but most importantly inform management that this incident was a reoccurring incident. I got to the store before 12:00, I was told the meat/butchery manager had already knocked off, the store manager was off and the assistant store manager was not interested, as when called to come to the front to attend to my case, she/he did not come and gave instruction for a refund to be done. I was then referred to a very unfriendly cashier who processed the refund and that was it, no incident was reported nor recorded. I did not even get an apology, nothing.

My concern is, if a case of rotten meat is treated so poorly with no seriousness nor importance, then how is the store going to improve to ensure such doesn’t happen again? Especially because this was the 2nd time I bought rotten meat at PnP The Glen. The 1st incident happened a few months back, I bought a tray of Farmstyle Boerewors, got home divided it and put it in the freezer, a couple of days later I defrosted the boerewors overnight to cook the following day. As it started cooking on the stove the whole house smelled like I was cooking something that had been dead for years, it was terrible, just thinking about that smell makes me sick all over again. I had to throw away meat to the value of about R160.00 just like that, and unfortunately I did not have the slip nor the original packaging anymore so I couldn’t go back to the store to report the incident. I dismissed it thinking it was a once off, as I had never had any issues in the past, hence I continued doing my groceries at PnP The Glen.

However after my experience on Saturday (17 October) at PnP The Glen, I’ve changed my mind, clearly I’ll have to find another store to do groceries at. The manner in which the situation was handled proved that such cases are not treated seriously which is a huge concern for me, you can’t sell customers rotten meat then act like it’s no big deal, that’s totally unacceptable. Even more reducing product prices does not mean you must sell products that are rotten. Don’t you check expiry dates or do quality checks before reducing products to clear?

Another concern, I think the store opened at 09:00, I got there before 12:00 but the meat/butchery manager had already knocked off, how is that possible? Why was the assistant store manager dismissive, is it not part of their duties to attend to customer complaints?