Right or wrong - online butcher

Ayr_Rage

@Ivrytwr3 you DO have your premium products, still in date, you've got 5.5 months to eat them and as I said before they will not spontaneously combust or otherwise spoil on 1st September.

We both agree agree that DR is not cheap, so even if the whole order of less than £100 was the issue that would most certainly be less than 15 items.

As only a small part of your order is what you perceive as short-dated I am sure you can arrange to scoff the offending items before the end of August.

Ivrytwr3

I went back to them and they've apologised, added a note that future orders will have longer life when sent to me, nothing else.

I won't be closing my account as we enjoy their products, but I'll be taking a break from them whilst also looking for an alternative supplier.

Aylesbury_Duck

It's worth checking the economics of bulk buying frozen goods in an era of high electricity prices, especially if it's an older, larger freezer. We've got a second freezer in the garage that we've stopped using for much of the year. It's useful in the run-up to Christmas, when we buy in advance to avoid seasonal price hikes, and after Christmas as we run stocks down, and in winter it doesn't cost much to keep it at -18c out in the detached garage. Otherwise I suspect we'd be paying more to store food than any saving we'd make by bulk-buying.

Belenus

Go easy on the OP.

There is a lot at steak, sorry stake here.

No chop jokes please.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I may be missing it (as I often do) but is there anything on their site about the right to cancel other than 

https://www.donaldrussell.com/terms-and-conditions

 The Buyer may cancel any order for Goods for any reason up to 72 hours before the point of dispatch and any payments made by the Buyer shall be refunded in full within 28 days. (The Buyer may cancel any Contract for Services.....)

The goods aren't "the supply of goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly" as that's the opposite of frozen food.

Assuming the order wasn't made to the consumer’s specifications or ... (wasn't) clearly personalised and if the food was sealed and remains as such I don't see why the right cancel doesn't exist? 

theoretica

For traditional farming, much slaughter is seasonal, at a certain age of animal or before the more expensive feeding of winter. 

HillStreetBlues

I suggest you put your beef with the butcher on ice as can't see you getting anywhere.

pinkshoes

Ivrytwr3 said:

We've bought from the same online butcher (Donald Russell) for several years and never had any issues. On this occasion, we spent just under £100 and several of the packs of meat/ready meals were dated as, 'frozen Aug 22' and 'Best Before Aug 23' - as the items arrived 17 Mar 23, the Best Before is approx 4/5 months away, losing 7 months of use (we get them frozen as we would eat/use throughout the year). Most of the items in the order arrived with Best Befores of 2024.

To me this was an issue, so i contacted customer service, who firstly wanted photos of the items i was referring to and then said as the items still had 'several' months of use left, they are not short-dated and therefore, sorry, not sorry.

We've not had this before with them, so not sure if this is normal business or they have just unloaded older stock onto us.

Given it's £7 for a small pack of chicken breasts and £5.50 for a small pack of beef, then for £100 that's only about 16 small portions of meat, or even less if you're buying the pre-made meals, so if you have at least 4 months then that is meat just once a week!!

Not to mention best before is generally meaningless with frozen food and it'll be fine for another 6 months or more easily. 

HillStreetBlues

pinkshoes said:

Not to mention best before is generally meaningless with frozen food and it'll be fine for another 6 months or more easily. 

As long as it's not exposed to the air then will last ages.
I have vac-packed steak from 2019 in my freezer

lincroft1710

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I may be missing it (as I often do) but is there anything on their site about the right to cancel other than 

https://www.donaldrussell.com/terms-and-conditions

 The Buyer may cancel any order for Goods for any reason up to 72 hours before the point of dispatch and any payments made by the Buyer shall be refunded in full within 28 days. (The Buyer may cancel any Contract for Services.....)

The goods aren't "the supply of goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly" as that's the opposite of frozen food.

Assuming the order wasn't made to the consumer’s specifications or ... (wasn't) clearly personalised and if the food was sealed and remains as such I don't see why the right cancel doesn't exist? 

Frozen food can easily deteriorate jf it is not stored properly.