Returning food item, no receipt. It's not fit to eat

jonty1970

Morning!
My boyfriend bought me a birthday cake yesterday

(It was a morrisons chocolate birthday cake)

On opening it, it stinks of glue or nail varnish and it tastes horrible.
Guess what, he has thrown the receipt away! He payed by debit card.
It's not about the money, it's that it's not fit, or safe, to eat.

What can we do? I want to know what has happened to it to make it smell and taste like that, as a child could have eaten it and been ill

Can we get a refund? Or take it to trading standards to check it out?

Thanks for any help

lynzpower

I strongly recommend you call environmental health in your local authority this morning. It could be that a large batch of cakes is contaminated with something toxic, so dont eat it and call them without delay.

jonty1970

Thank you. I will.
It was a large cake, with 20 portions on the box (would have to be small portions though)

I though maybe it was the box that caused the smell, so took it out to air the cake, but it still stinks and a few of us tried a little piece and it tastes awful

superflygal

I agree, Environmental health. Morrison's customer service is crap, so I would hit them from this angle. They are likely to be rude and unhelpful in store (I speak from experience of my local store!)

SFG x

zenseeker

If it's Morrisons own make, and the use by date is clearly displayed, they should be happy to replace it for you. Thing is, a lot of these off the shelf birthday cakes are drenched in preservatives, especially in the icing, so it could just be that you are smelling. I used to work onn the department and regularly stocked these up, and very often you could smell the chemicals.

lynzpower

zenseeker wrote: »

If it's Morrisons own make, and the use by date is clearly displayed, they should be happy to replace it for you. Thing is, a lot of these off the shelf birthday cakes are drenched in preservatives, especially in the icing, so it could just be that you are smelling. I used to work onn the department and regularly stocked these up, and very often you could smell the chemicals.

The problem is that people just returning food for a tiny refund of a couple of quid doesnt allow the authorities to investigate any food-borne illnesses and contaminations - staff just bin it, and keep it under wraps.

zenseeker

Not at all, we had a number of complaints and they were always dealt with. There is a coating applied to the cake to preserve the icing as long as possible and it is very likely that it's just been coated with too much. Shouldn't be dangerous but is certainly unpleasant on the nose.

Having tasted these cakes I wouldn't ever buy one again anyway, icing tastes like vaguely sweetened cardboard and the cream is usually pretty sickly Kids love 'em though and they are convenient if you really don't have time (or can't be bothered) to actually make one yourself.

lynzpower

I used to work at tescos many moons ago and "returns" were usualyl bagged and labelled then left on a cage in the back to go in the incinerator.

Particularly meat. (which was the main thing that generally got returned)

alwaysonthego_2

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Mk14:37

jonty1970 wrote: »

it still stinks and a few of us tried a little piece and it tastes awful

More fool you.

jonty1970

Mk14:37 wrote: »

More fool you.

cheeky! It might have just been the smell from the box and need to air, so we had a little taste!

Environmental health said they will ring me back. It will be monday now.

I didn't want to take it back to the shop, like others have said, they'll just bin it!