Tesco - rotten on the inside!?

We are forever buying fruit that looks just beautiful from the outside but is often actually inedible or of very poor quality. Having lived for half my life in a sub-tropical country (South Africa) you can rest assured I know tropical / sub tropical fruit VERY WELL.

The current example is of Nectarines purchased on the 20/03/2007 at 15:54 As I said it is all very well having fruit arriving here from all over the world LOOKING perfect on the outside but when you try and eat it, as is often the case, it is not correctly ripened and or has a powerdry texture and when allowed to ripen a bit, as in this case a few days, goes off or at least ends up inedible.

The picture shown reflects the fruit as it was on Friday 23rd March 3 days after purchase. It is a shamefull indictment of the lack of interest TESCO actually has in supplying “good quality” products.

My complaint is not aimed at getting something back from Tesco (although I often feel that I should because to be sold fruit like this is not on, in simple terms IT'S a rip off !) but more towards offering valuable feedback on the problem of picking, preparing and transporting fruit over long distances and getting TESCO to DO SOMETHING about the problem.

Before I move on, I do however wish to point out that these nectarines were and still are on a special offer, HALF PRICE, and I could just not help thinking that TESCO is simply dumping stock that is not quiet up to standard or stock that they know will not last and reach the customer in the quality it should, at special prices, to get the public to buy the sub-standard product and minimise TESCO's wastage / loss.

Back on the more general matter, as you may be aware fruit can be successfully picked early, held in cold storage and ripened on demand by raising the storage temperature and spiking the natural ripening process by the introduction of Ethylene into the air.

Unfortunately this process needs very tight control and degradation of the quality of the fruit, as has happened in this case can occur, amongst other things, because...

Fruit is overheated between time of picking and cold storage for transport.
Fruit is over cooled during the cold storage transport stage.

I think Tesco should have a hard look at the procedures involved and make it the responsibility of the suppliers / transporters to keep accurate recorded temperatures from beginning to end of the process, recording the temperature every 30 minutes during of the process using an inexpensive digital device that accompanies the fruit throughout it's journey. This way TESCO can refuse to accept fruit that will not reflect the high standards we, your customers demand. There are however also other actions / factors that govern the fruit final quality that should be considered.

This way Tesco can live up to it's name of bringing high quality to it's customers in every aspect of your service.

Grey Smith

Tesco-Complaint: This is far from the the first rotten produce complaint we've received - Tesco must receive hundreds if not thousands of rotten complaints. Will they ever do anything about it?