Supermarket chain Iceland has been fined £20,000 for selling raw chicken in a ready meal.
A batch of the offending chicken tikka balti was meant to be recalled on March 25 but seven weeks’ later Luke Driver bought one from Iceland in Norbury.
Despite following the package instructions, when he ate the curry he noticed it tasted “odd” and was “obviously raw”.
He reported it to Croydon Council, who conducted tests on the chicken that revealed the centre was in their opinion raw.
At Croydon Crown Court today, Recorder A Baillie said it was a “serious but local breach” of food safety processes.
He said: “In Norbury the batch recall was not fully conducted and that was the responsibility of two gentlemen.
“The store manager acknowledged receipt of the recall notice but clearly whatever he said had not overseen the total withdrawal of the product.
“The second person at fault was the area manager who should have checked that [recall] folder and therefore did not detect the store manager had not taken the appropriate action.”
Defending, Michelle Brown said: “food safety is a continuing priority for this company.
“We are genuinely sorry that on this occasion the processes were insufficient to ensure a full recall as required.”
She added the store manager had since been dismissed, a new area manager was in place, and there had been additional training in regards to recalls put in place.
Iceland was also ordered to pay £5,500 costs.
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