Local Corner Shop Stocks Brands With Horsemeat; Employee Laughs And Shrugs It Off

Hi RHU, I have a story from the other side of the counter today! I've posted once before as Kiosk Keeper so I'll stick with that for now.

Before I get into my story, I'll give a little background as I don't know what the media coverage has been like outside of the UK. We are currently embroiled in a 'Horsemeat Scandal'. Horse meat and pork have been found in products claiming to be 100% beef. It's mainly been found in value or low cost food items, and the speculation is that after the banning of MRM (mechanically recovered meat, where a high pressure water jet is used on the bones of animals and the sinews that come away are used as cheap meat), suppliers simply can't afford to put beef in cheap meals.

As you can imagine, this has caused major outcry for several reasons including religious and cultural. However the most worrying thing is that horses for human consumption can NEVER have been drugged with Bute. It's not safe for humans to use (although I know some riders do stupidly use it).

So the upshot of all this is that a lot of food brands have been pulled from the shelves and are not to be sold.

Yesterday, I popped into my local corner shop. I don't really like shopping there as the stock is never checked and often I've taken something home only to find its years out of date, and the owner has a bit of a fancy for me that makes me uncomfortable. Anywho it's right across the road from my house and needs must when you have two screaming children to contend with!

So I popped in and was browsing in the frozen section, when to my absolute amazement I saw an entire freezer stuffed full of a particular brand/meal that was proven to be 100% horse meat.

My jaw hit the floor. Not only has the entire nation been following this story from the start, but Mr Cashier Man was sat right next to a huge wall of newspapers ALL bearing large photos of some of the particular brands containing horsemeat.

When I confronted the cashier and told him he would have to get rid of his stock, he shrugged and laughed and said a bit of horse never hurt anyone. Unbelievable. Regardless of the fact that we as consumers deserve to know the truth about what we are eating, there is the massive worry of Bute contamination.

At that point I gave up, went home and phoned my local council.

Honestly, I try to have sympathy for retail slaves as I was one for long enough but this just took the biscuit.

May your food be labelled correctly,

--Kiosk Keeper

Comments

[random cashier]

While I think the "bit of horse never hurt" was a uncalled for, as a cashier you have no authority to pull anything off the shelf. Even if it is out of date. Or at least where I work that is the case. I have to get a manager to remove anything like that. I have known of products that were recalled, and still on our shelves, but I can not go out on the floor and pull them myself. I have to get a manager and they get to do it.

Really what did you expect the cashier to do in this case? Stop ringing up people, leave his register unattended, walk back the the meat section and remove product from the shelf just because you asked him to? If you have a complaint about something like that then talk to a manager, but the poor retail slave who doesn't get paid to deal with shit like that.

[NC Tony]

I don't think he meant for the cashier to take care of it (especially not right then and there), but to get someone with the authority to remove stock to take care of it.

[Gigachick]

I think in the case of something being a potential hazard to a customer's health, it should be taken care of immediately. If he can't, then get the manager, for heaven's sake. In my store, cashiers are allowed to pull recalled items and set them behind the counter (or in the case of fridge foods, damage them out with manager approval). But to be fair, I'm the ONLY cashier at my store, with two assistants and a store manager.

Even still, if he couldn't, someone else should have been on shift who had the authority to do so. Not everyone follows the news; how many people could have bought that and gotten sick?

[StudentSlave]

Random cashier, in the UK corner shops (at least all the ones I've been in) are typically 'one-man' bands - the owner does everything by themselves and there are no other staff (apart from maybe their partner). It's not unreasonable to assume the person on the till is the shop owner, as 90% of the time it is!

Also corner shops have a tiny floor area (they sell a small selection of essential food stuff, toiletries and magazines, you couldn't do a proper food shop there) it would be a case of the cashier walking maybe 4 or 5 meters to the freezer from the till point to remove the food.

[The Last Archimedean]

I don't care who has to do it, that crap should be pulled from the shelf. If the cashier needed to call maanger then he should have done so, but you can't be selling things that have a known risk of making people sick. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen, not to mention the people who lose a week of their life with food poisioning.

[Dhamp]

Basically, the health risk part is bullshit.

There is no risk from this, no evidence that there has been any food poisoning from this whatsoever (The prevailing theory is that the meat is responsibly sourced from other countries, where horse meat is a normal thing to eat).

There's been no recall, no official stance by any agencies, just the usual media outcry and public idiocy as a result.

[nubs]

Just because there's been no illnesses reported does not mean this is ok.

These companies for one LIED about their products being 100% beef. You might can explain away a 1-2% contamination as 'oh shit we need to reteach joe how to clean the machines' but a 40-100% contamination is wrong.

Two you need to go to your local feed store and write down what you see on the backs of horse feed and meds and look that up. Thaat shit is NOT approved for human consumption and you shouls prolly throughly scrub your hands after every time you touch it because it isn't good.

[Restaurant_Slave]

I'm working in a restaurant affected by the horse problem, it's not our faults for it being in the food our supplier is the one who didn't test correctly. I can't say anymore, if they find out who I am goodbye job. Local corner shops are always like that for me, one in particular everything is out of date despite repeated complaints to trading standards he probably has horse tainted food too, if they're run the same as the shop I know then the cashier would be allowed to leave the till.

[Kiosk Keeper]

Random cashier, what the commenters tell you is right. Mr Cashier Man as I referred to him is the owners brother. Generally these little stores are family run, so yes, it was his problem. And considering I was the only customer, again normal in these shops, he would hardly have been abandoning a swarm of customers to take care of this issue.

Dhal ( sorry if that's wrong I'm on my phone) its not an issue of food poisoning. It's about pharmaceutical contamination.

[Damn Yankee]

Yeaaah, a bit of horse never hurt anyone.

Bullshit.

There's no proof these horses had clean passports before they were slaughtered. Goodness only knows what kind of medicines were used on them before slaughter, and if they're safe for human consumption. 98% of antibiotics, vaccinations, painkillers, and wormers have huge stickers on them saying, "NOT INTENDED FOR ANIMALS MEANT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION".

Yes, they say that the horses were likely sourced correctly, but there's no way of knowing. Those meals were also supposed to be 100% beef.

[Queer Geek]

Now I'm pretty open to try certain delicacies as long as I know what I'm consuming. Yes, the horse meat contamination is a problem and everything that it entails but if the business owner is less concerned about expiration dates and health risks, then I would definitely put the word out there not to shop at that particular establisment. It's obvious the owner cares nothing about public safety so a little word of mouth might be good to avoid places where meat and produce might be unsafe for public consumption.

[Rain]

Probably off topic, but why do you say riders are stupid for using Bute on their horses? I live in the US and my family has horses. It is VERY common to use Bute on horses, it's considered "horse aspirin". Why should riders stop using medicines their horses need on the off chance the horse will be sold for slaughter some day to an unethical company and someone will eat it? That just seems bizarre to me.

[5 Star Slave]

Rain - I read it as the riders used it on themselves.

[Damn Yankee]

In Europe, there's a "passport" system, linked to each horse, that describes its health history, including medicines or vaccinations. An average horse, dosed with bute, for example, will get a stamp in its passport not allowing it to enter the human food chain. With these horses, there's no knowing what the source was, if they had clean passports.

And yes, some riders are incredibly stupid and dose themselves with it, Rain. I know I've doctored myself out of my horse's medicine box (cooling poultice feels fantastic on your shoulders and neck after working hard), but I stick with topicals. Polo wraps work great for rolled ankles, too!

[Dhamp]

*sigh*

Shit isn't suitable for human consumption either, but salads still get sold.

Bute is one of the few real risks (and nubs, there is no difference between food poisoning and pharmaceutical contamination, "food" is just chemicals with appealing names). It's to do with how it (doesn't),
break down.

Until there's any official finding and confirmation of contamination with Bute, these foods are no different to how they ever have been.

Head-scraping quality meat, that you can't taste anyway. For a small shopkeeper, a stock pull of all possibly horsey products could be financially crippling. I thought that Capitalism was all about the small business owners circle-jerking?

My only hope is that this leads to people being a damn sight more responsible with their meat intake, and we stop destroying the rainforest and climate over our massively unhealthy obsession with cow meat.

[Skittles]

I don't see anything wrong with eating horse meat, but it isn't okay to deliberately mislabel products. The public has every right to be upset that what they purchased was very different from what the company promised.

[Nomnom]

Yeah, I'm with Skittles. Not seeing what is wrong with consuming horsemeat, but passing it off as 100% beef is totally not ok. I have yet to hear of anyone getting sick from the horsemeat products (though I have not been following it closely).

Also thankful that this isn't happening in the US. ._.

[Bitterbookaddickt]

As someone who grew up in a country where eating horse meat is normal. I can vouch that at least here horses are bred for the food market and by that I mean their temperament is checked to see if they are suitable to be trained as riding horses if not they will be slaughtered.

I do however have a problem with mislabeling product especially if it is done with intent to deceive.

[Melpomene]

I can understand being upset that you purchased "100% beef" and got horse instead, but there wouldn't be this outrage if it was chicken or pork instead of horse.

It is slightly concerning though, as it's not possible to be sure of how these horses have been bred and raised, but we pump so many hormones and drugs into the cows, chickens, pigs and lambs that we already eat that I don't actually have any real concerns myself.

As for bute specifically, if I recall it's phenylbutazone which is an NSAID originally developed for human use. They stopped using it on humans in the UK and USA due to the risk of bone marrow depression and blood disorders. According to the NHS website it is still occasionally prescribed to humans however, for treating AS. It has a lot of potential risks for humans, but it can't be as bad as the media are making out.

I think there's more drama being generated than is justified over this. Horse isn't widely eaten in the UK, so we're being drama queens over it. As I said, there wouldn't be this outrage if it was a more mainstream meat like pork.

[The Last Archimedean]

Melpomene, I'd be horribly outraged even if it was chicken. If the label says 100% beef, it f*cking well better be 100% beef. If I want chicken I'll buy a f*cking chicken.

The fact that it's horse meat and a potential health hazard just adds to the outrage.

[Seeker]

"there wouldn't be this outrage if it was chicken or pork instead of horse."
Waitrose beef actually tested contaminated for pork and-at least in my area- that's caused as much, if not more, outrage. Partly because of religious dietary requirements in Judaism and Islam, but also because it suggests a more institutionalised attitude towards meat contamination as it's a different type of contamination and therefore definitely from a different source than the rest.

As for the risk with Bute, the chances are small that you would eat enough to get sick. But, the chance is still there, and if you were to be affected it could do you some serious damage, maybe kill you. It's not like you would just puke for a few days like regular food poisoning. We know some of the meat has tested positive for small amounts of Bute (just not enough to be harmful). My problem with it is that we have the right to know what we're eating. It's a breach of trust. If I had a horse steak in front of me that I knew was horse and had gone through the proper channels and testing then I would dig in happily.

Most suppliers have done a full recall on contaminated meat, and all major supermarkets have taken contaminated lines off their shelves. He should have taken it down.

On a lighter note, the only place, out of supermarkets, fast food restaurants, city councils (including the beef used in school meals), that I've heard of as testing 100% clean is McDonalds. Which strikes me as hilarious for some reason.