News:

Welcome to V.L.H

Main Menu
Welcome to verylittlehelps. Please login or sign up.

28-03-24, 11:04AM

Login with username, password and session length

Recent

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 38,115
  • Total Topics: 630
  • Online today: 316
  • Online ever: 1,436
  • (24-01-24, 01:01AM)
Users Online
Users: 3
Guests: 286
Total: 289

Lack of cold chain

Started by Peacelily, 05-09-20, 07:22PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Peacelily

Hi all,

So I work nights stacking shelves, and have done for about 5 years now. Cold chain seems to be non existent in my store on fresh and frozen departments throughout the night, despite colleagues and myself complaining to managers about it.
For example, some of our fresh team will have an entire delivery of yogurt cages plus their back stock (sometimes up to 12 cages ish) on the shop floor for the ENTIRE shift. (10pm-6am) and the managers just shrug their shoulders when you say something - until we have an audit due, that’s the only time they do anything about it.
Same goes for aisles such as meat, cheese etc, out of the fridge all night while people work.

Last year, my mum had a Tesco delivery (picked from our store) and she opened up a yogurt which had mould in it. She checked the other 3 from the multi pack and found mould on two more. She complained, Tesco said some rubbish about how things can be pierced in transit etc and refunded her. Hard to believe when the yogurts come with a cardboard box over the top but hey ho, plus we checked and there were no holes.
I complained to my senior night manager about this, who brushed it off, and nothing happened, made out like I was making a big deal over nothing.

Anyway. She was put off for a long time by this but started getting them again with her delivery, and has had food poisoning all this week which she thinks is down to the yogurts. She felt funny after having one, left it a day or so and felt ok, had another and now has all the food poisoning symptoms.

So my question is, how do I take my complaints about staff breaching the cold chain and lack of management enforcement further?

My partner (also works the same shifts as me) has gone through protector line, but I know that goes to my store managers boss then to SM etc until it filters down to my managers, who I doubt will do anything. Or they might for a day or two then stop. It’s also a pain using protector line because if you do it anonymous the managers go around questioning everyone who did it as though they take it personally that someone complained.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give




alf

#1
I'd still use the protector line as it'll involve/alert people outside the store.

Though if you were to prepared to ruffle feathers, you could refuse to pack out stock that's broken the cold chain, but granted I know that approach is easier said than done.

tempworker2020

#2
This seems to be common practice.  I remember seeing dot com trolleys sitting for over an hour after they had been picked in the store I worked in.

lucgeo

Is there no union rep on nights? Obviously the management are ignoring any protestations made by the team, your rep could step in and raise the team's concerns.
You should also have a store H&S rep, who should be made aware of the cold chain ruling not being adhered to.
Your rep and the H&S rep have monthly meetings, when they should be discussing this. Then there is the store forum, which is attended by the SM, union rep and H&S rep, you can raise your concerns through this, and contrary to what they'll have you think, you do not have to put your name on the card, nor should the SM declare that they won't discuss it as its not signed, or the " not a store issue" chestnut.
Any questions put to the forum should be minuted, as should the responses and next steps on the issue. All minutes of the meeting should then be displayed on the notice board.
Your other option would be for the team to place a group greivance against the night managers for breaching Tesco policies.

Live for today. Learn from yesterday.

chris9997

Although the cold chain is an important part of a job on dairy/ frozen it is pointless to bring it to anyone’s attention within Tesco for the following reasons.
Staff are not given enough time to  keep moving stock between shop floor and chillers constantly , Tesco could resolve the issue them selves by managing stock better and not having back stock that is not needed for days, thus reducing handling .
Also Tesco have the occasional blitz on the cold chain and then at Christmas everything falls apart when stock does not fit back in chiller.

spike_pkh

Protector line is useless.. your complaint will got to your group PM who will pass it to the store manager to sort, who will ignore it and it will be forgotten about..

At least thats what happened with the call in my store

NightAndDay

Hmm, I thought only in-store employee-employer issues got passed to the PM  to sort out, I was under the impression anything that concerns healty and safety, trading standards, fraud etc would be passed on to the responsible external regulatory body for investigation?

King1999

Food standards agency should be interested......contact them,it’s definitely a health risk.

dirty-donkey

 I've discussed this issue with the EH (Scot) and they are not interested until it is proved that contaminated food has been sold.
My issue was with overfilled freezers, the top items being defrosted. - and the meat aisle stock pulled off of lorry and onto shop floor and left out all night - Not interested!
I often wonder how many dodgy tums, doses of the Two-Bob-Bits and the occasional deceased pensioner is down to these practices. >:D

Fixxer

I'd say this is common in every store. Particularly the dairy departments where the cages, even when sorted, contain enough varied stuff that it can take someone half an hour to properly work one while rotating stock. Seeing 4 or 5 cages plus some dollies out is certainly common in our store which means at least some stuff being out for, realistically, 3hrs at a time if not more.

With the current crackdown on overtime and excess hours it's a single person just trying to get the job done that they'll get picked up on if they try and work otherwise. The time that it takes in our store (due to layout) to get a cage out and put it back means even someone working a small amount of cages will probably spend an hour in time just to move things on and off the shop floor - that's the difference between getting 2 extra cages worked or not and you can guess which the managers would rather have done.


Preacherpauly

I've seen the produce team leave out all chilled items for most of the night. There is no where to put it whilst dot com are in so early.

oldfashionedplayer

Yeah, our produce are left out from 10pm to 6:30am, cream cakes are left for about 2 hours, sandwiches are usually about an hour and half to 2 hours depending on how much is there, Yoghurts excess cages are left there from around 10 till 3, meat trays are left from 10 till 5, so just normal for our store....

Raised it before and its "there's cold air blowing in the aisles its fine"

NightAndDay

Make a docunentary of this blatant disregard of the cold chain rule, blackmail the people partner with proof of the managers lack of due dilligence saying you won't turn it in if they do something about it. And then email a copy to the food standards agency and trading standards, get the media involved to (make sure they pay you for it.)

chris9997

I think that you need to be realistic this practise is not just tesco but also most other retailers realistily I have seen a pallet of frozen out in a discounter and a pallet of fresh out at Morris ons.

NightAndDay

#14
The cold chain rule exists because it highlight an important health and safety issue, if chilled or frozen food has been left out of the chilled environment for longer than 20 minutes the risk of foodbourne illnesses increases for the customers that pay for it. It's an issue where the importance shouldn't be downplayed just because of how common the practice is.

The FSA wouldn't be worth the money they're on even though they're funded by the tax payers if they're in cahoots with the supermarket, their function in society is what it says on the tin, food standards, part of which is hygeine and the cold chain rule being followed. Get evidence and send a copy off, if they give you some Mickey Mouse BS send it to the press.

Nomad

I would not like to be in the shoes of any food safety agency if following an outbreak of a serious nature it was proven they had be forewarned that breaches of cold chain had been occurring in a store held to be responsible for the outbreak.  Heaven help them if a senior citizen died as a result.
Nomad ( Forum Admin )
It's better to be up in arms than down on your knees.

TypoRange

I think I am one of a few Fresh workers that bother with the chain and I am constantly reminding some of my more lazier colleagues to adhere to it so we do not end up giving our customers food poisoning.

If the depot didn't stack our deliveries so badly we could get them out much faster than having to clean up a whole case of exploded yoghurt, or the shelf on the shelved cage crushing half the stock.


Darth Tosco

Even if we manage to get a cage of stock worked within the 20 minute chain time, when it's taken back into the chiller, the fans have been switched off inside while delivery is being pre-sorted. 

forrestgimp

happens all the time at our store, basicaly delivery is left on the shop floor until its done regardless of time.

T2019sackallmanagers

Cold chain, what cold chain 😂 in the store I work the frozen aisle and two fresh aisles are decked for gang fills nightly 🤦‍â™,️

NightAndDay

Mickey Mouse at it's matey boyist, wouldn't expect anything less from the Covid hub of the supermarket world.

optout

#21
Doesn't the Hub pick up cold-chain issues? The evidence would be there for all to see on CCTV, including exact time out of cold-chain. It would only take an official a couple of minutes to check!?

If an email where sent to the Hub warning them of the issue, and it could be proven at a later date (using their own CCTV footage) that it remained an issue. surely this would prove that Tesco is complicit at a corporate level in turning a blind eye to unlawful/unsafe practices.

Also check the Safe and Legal book for the chilled section, on the front page it states similar to... 'this document may be used in a court of law '. If information in this book has been falsified then surely this is a fraud issue as-well as a H&S issue.

If somebody where of a mind to, they could create a petition on change.org along the lines of; 'petition to force Tesco to adhere to cold-chain rules in-store' or something similar. If this petition developed legs it would 'break-out'  of the grasp of the 'official' stake-holders and move beyond their surely tacit ambivalence and force them to acknowledge that it IS an issue. The comments section of such a petition (if popular) would be the end to justify the means, especially if those comments contained details of many and varied breaches from many and varied stores/employees. If 'popular', and I stress this as a requirement for its effectiveness, there would not be a rug big enough for Tesco to brush the issue under. 

Just a thought.
I AM NOT A REP, BUT......

forrestgimp

the hub picks up what the hub wants to pick up so no i doubt it.

NightAndDay

#23
Quote from: optout on 15-09-20, 06:51PM
Doesn't the Hub pick up cold-chain issues? The evidence would be there for all to see on CCTV, including exact time out of cold-chain. It would only take an official a couple of minutes to check!?

If an email where sent to the Hub warning them of the issue, and it could be proven at a later date (using their own CCTV footage) that it remained an issue. surely this would prove that Tesco is complicit at a corporate level in turning a blind eye to unlawful/unsafe practices.

Also check the Safe and Legal book for the chilled section, on the front page it states similar to... 'this document may be used in a court of law '. If information in this book has been falsified then surely this is a fraud issue as-well as a H&S issue.

If somebody where of a mind to, they could create a petition on change.org along the lines of; 'petition to force Tesco to adhere to cold-chain rules in-store' or something similar. If this petition developed legs it would 'break-out'  of the grasp of the 'official' stake-holders and move beyond their surely tacit ambivalence and force them to acknowledge that it IS an issue. The comments section of such a petition (if popular) would be the end to justify the means, especially if those comments contained details of many and varied breaches from many and varied stores/employees. If 'popular', and I stress this as a requirement for its effectiveness, there would not be a rug big enough for Tesco to brush the issue under. 

Just a thought.

They would still just be met with punitive fines though, the government needs to protect the interests of the largest market share holder, why else would the CMA allow the Booker merger and Tesco received a relatively puny fine for the accounting scandal?


optout

Are there any tesco stores out there that DO adhere to the correct cold-chain procedure?
I AM NOT A REP, BUT......

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk