The Elephant in the Room..........

[oldjerry]

Well we're not discussing it,and I'm not surprised,I guess more than a few of us on here have had a quiet smirk at recent events,however much we might try to stay clear of schadenfreude,that said here's one angle of it all that really gets me:



8 weeks ago while Mrs OJ's Renault 5 was being fixed at a friends yard I forgot to SORN it and for 5 weeks it was untaxed,though off the road,untill I remembered and rang Swansea.Within a week,I had a bill for £42 with 2 weeks to pay,hands in the air,I coughed up.




Seems to me several major food retailers have broken more than a few laws recently,any charges brought...????

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Ah, well, this is quite different, because although they broke the law, they didn't mean to, so it was just an unfortunate misunderstanding, whereas you on the other hand.... erm... oh... could you repeat the question, please?

[GeorgeSalt]

Elephant? I thought horse was bad enough, where are they getting this burger meat from?

[oldjerry]

I heard they found only horsemeat in the lasagne because they'd used cheddar.

If only they'd used marscapone............

[boboff]

Best joke on the subject yet Jerry, thank you.

I would mention however that the manufacturer of the lines recalled will be very, in my opinion, heavily fined by each retailer.

10 years ago the minimum product recall cost from a multiple for a small supplier was £50,000 plus double the cost of the stock, plus £25 for each customer return plus the transport costs/disposal costs. I would not be surprised if the findus lasagne alone cost findus in excess of £1,000,000.

Some what more than your £42, but the same principal, you play the game you know the rules, mess up and it's going to cost you.

[oldjerry]

Fair enough,but I would have thought the retailers themselves were responsible in law for the deception of their customers,wether they personally knew about it or not,however much their suppliers might suffer financially(and you know as well as I do,that if the sums involved are too big they will go into liquidation and begin again as a new identity) are the retailers not themselves responsible in law?

I may be wrong,I havent got a degree in law,it just seems that it didn't take the system that long to punish my lapse in memory.
Mind you ,why am I surprised?despite dozens of the South Yorks police clearly conspiring to pervert the cause of justice,nobody's been convicted ..........after 24 years.

[boboff]

Well this is the thing, the supermarkets HAVE to contract with suppliers, and part of the supplier audit procedure is to ensure that they can afford a recall, it's part of the deal.

Supermarkets really act like all consumers with a strong position, they insist on the best terms possible. The defense in law is "Due Diligence" which if they can prove, which I would assume T***o can 100%, then they can not be found "guilty"

The same with your Tax, would a reasonable person find that you had exercised due diligence in ensuring to SORN your car? No, obviously not.

The only solace with the South Yorks Police is that at last we live in a society where the truth with out, at least eventually, in some cases, where it suits etc etc.

Queue Dunc!

[GeorgeSalt]

I can't see the retailers being prosecuted for this. They'll have due diligence records, and it's looking like an international fraud on a scale that couldn't have been reasonably foreseen - retailers in UK, Norway, France and Germany affected, international brand names like Findus - and that's the test the authorities will require to be met.

But, when all's said and done, noone has identified a specific food safety issue. Noone has become ill, no traces of restricted substances have been found.

[gregorach]

Queue Dunc!

What am I supposed to be queuing for?

[Green Aura]

Can anyone tell me why they were DNA testing lasagne anyway?

[GeorgeSalt]

Can anyone tell me why they were DNA testing lasagne anyway?

I can't find anything definitive, but my suspicion is that either there is very occasional DNA testing of processed meat products by the Irish authorities or they had a tip-off. Once the first not-what-it-should-be test result came in that prompted more in-depth testing of the products the original sample was known to have been used for, and then the net was cast more widely to carry out testing of a much wider range of similar processed meat products. Hindsight is a wonderful thing for directing your analysis budget.

[boboff]

Queue Dunc!

What am I supposed to be queuing for?

To give a witty reply to GA question?

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Coo - you could really get into a nice legal argument here. Did the retailers exercise due diligence in the conduct of their contract with the end consumer? It could be argued that their responsibility goes right to the end of the supply chain back in the abattoirs. They would argue, I suppose, that it doesn't, but I don't think it's clear. Given the prices involved, the supermarkets must have had some notion that the meat in the stuff they were selling was not going to be top-of-the-range gear.

Plenty lawyers make heap-big fees me think.

[GeorgeSalt]

Given the prices involved, the consumers must have had some notion that the meat in the stuff they were buying was not going to be top-of-the-range gear.

Adjusted.. anyone involved in transactions for meat that cheap is kidding themselves if they thought it was going to be anything special.

One thing that hasn't surpised me is that so far McDonalds appear to be untainted by the scandal, regardless of what you may think of them, I'd trust their quality assuarance better than most food retailers. I can't see them least-cost formulating in the same way as the really cheap processors.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Given the prices involved, the consumers must have had some notion that the meat in the stuff they were buying was not going to be top-of-the-range gear.

Adjusted.. anyone involved in transactions for meat that cheap is kidding themselves if they thought it was going to be anything special.

True enough, though they would have a reasonable expectation that what was on the packet was in the packet. I suspect that where the retailers are going to have most difficulty arguing that they have done all they can in the way of due diligence is where the product carries their name.