Go straight to trading standards

MillieJean

Couple of months ago husband enjoying his usual Sainsbury’s Weetabix breakfast when he bit into something metal, ( damaged his tooth which needed treatment). The offending object was A METAL NAIL/TACK. Very shocked and surprised we took it and the batch details from the box back to Sainsbury’s and spoke to manager, who gave us a complimentary voucher for our ‘inconvenience’. She’d send the nail to HO ‘for testing’, and report back with results.  As we heard nothing we chased it up and yesterday had a call back from HO. Apologies for not getting back to us, and then read out a fairly long report which basically said, there is no way that a metal object could have got into their food processing due to the many precautions they take in manufacturing. No mention of any ‘testing’ of the nail. Just a bog standard reply. Totally disregarding what we said happened. This really annoyed us, basically inferring we’d made it up. Lots of conciliatory, “ I understand” later, he basically said if we didn’t like the result we could follow it up ourselves. So my advice to anyone in a similar situation is do not lose the evidence by handing it over to Sainsbury’s, deal with your local Foods Standard Agency instead. 

emmajones1976

What would a "test" on the nail prove?

MillieJean

Not sure, that’s what the Sainsbury’s manager said they’d do. 

k3lvc

emmajones1976 said:

What would a "test" on the nail prove?

In a food product a test on a foreign body (esp a metal one) would generally prove whether it could have been in the product at the point of production/packing or whether it's been added later in the supply chain (or was never actually there at all)

And @MillieJean neither Food Standard Agency isn't the place to report this - they don't engage with the public and for a single incident Trading Standards will send you back to the store to deal with them 

MillieJean

Thanks emmajones1976, that’s useful advice. We presumed testing would reveal information as you describe. But all we got was standard reply no report on any testing. 

TELLIT01

The 'test', as has been said, is to determine whether or not the offending item was part of any of the machinery used in the production process rather than a physical test of the offending item.  If they can show that it didn't come from the production line I'm not sure what more can be done.  Sainsbury's have apologised and provided a voucher, although the OP doesn't state the value.

Presumably the OP wants payment from Sainsbury's for the dental treatment but they won't pay.