Frozen food law

youaim

asharon wrote: »

But then at the end of the day a shop is entitled to refuse a sale for no reason at all.

I completely agree. I wan't given no reason at all though. I was told it was illegal (and then sold a chilled pizza instead that was in a powered off fridge that was above 5 degrees which, according to what I've read "must" not be sold, rather than just "should" not be). I would have been happy if I'd been told "you can't have it because I'm running the place and I say you can't". Thats what I used to do if someone questioned my reasons (with a more polite phrasing of course).

If it's illegal, which bit of which law or act says it's illegal?

Gondo_2

I think this is the bit of legislation http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/ukpga_19900016_en_3 and I think what you describe comes under regulations part 16 (d) (page 3 of this link) although it may fall under consumer protection part 14. It's a wordy bit of guidance!!

Although how that distinguishes between fridge and freezer as you describe I not sure..... your local authority environmental health department will enforce this legislation and you could give them a ring/email and they'll probably be able to quote you the right part of the Act!!

Anyway if you'd been sold pizza and taken to hospital with food poisoning then Env Health would have been notified and potentially taken action against shop-although in all possibility knowing how busy they are if it was just you and not a party of 100+ all falling ill they prob wouldn't bother!!!

I'm not sure if this helps!!

youaim

Gondo wrote: »

I think this is the bit of legislation http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/ukpga_19900016_en_3 and I think what you describe comes under regulations part 16 (d) (page 3 of this link) although it may fall under consumer protection part 14. It's a wordy bit of guidance!!

Yea - I'd come to the conclusion that whatever law covers this is in that act somewhere and that it refers to other guidelines or values defined more locally somewhere else, although I hadn't considered section 16.

I guess really you need to be a lawyer and/or intimately familiar with the whole picture (e.g. the guy at the food and standards agency) to be able to precisely say it's X act + Y regulation + Z adendum that makes a particular thing illegal or not.

I might try the local authority health and safety, although they probably have more important things to do than answer my slightly irrelevant quest for a precisely defined bit of law. I already tried the FSA and the response was (kind of) "!!!!!! off", I don't blame 'em really

Thanks for your help!

akane_2

It would probaly fall under the due diligence part of the Food Safety Act.
If they sold you the pizza and you fell ill and you sued the store they could not use a due diligence defence because they Knew the freezer was faulty and the product was not stored inline with European Regulation (EC) which seems to over rule UK legislation from 2007.
Maybe they said it was against the law as an excuse not to sell them to you and that way they get no arguments.

spaceman5

most supermarkets have a 20 minute rule in operation, where if they suspect any fresh, or frozen products have been out of refrigeration, or freezer cabinets for more than 20 minutes, then they do not sell the products, HTH Dave.