Damning film prompts food recall

SUPERMARKET chain Iceland has withdrawn a range of Indian pre-prepared food from its Irish outlets after an investigation by ITV found unhygienic practices at a supplier’s food production plant.

The British retailer yesterday confirmed that a six-pack onion bhaji product made by UK firm Perkins had been withdrawn as a precaution.

The investigation, aired on ITV’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald this week, led Iceland to remove thousands of packets of Perkins Premier Nuggets from the shelves of their English outlets after secret filming at a supplier’s plant revealed poor hygiene practices.

Manager of Iceland’s Talbot Street store in Dublin, John McKenna, confirmed the products had been recalled pending the outcome of an investigation into the food safety breach.

“They do produce some products for us which we don’t sell very much of in Ireland, but we have taken off a six-pack onion bhaji as a precautionary measure,” Mr McKenna said.

The secret film recorded at a Perkins Frozen Foods plant in Stoke on Trent showed staff were not obliged to wash their hands. Footage broadcast yesterday showed nuggets which had fallen on the floor being swept up and placed into a container to be put back into the nugget mix.

A manager was filmed taking workers to the factory floor without going through the wash area. Boots with chicken mix on the soles were left out to be worn without being cleaned.

It had been thought that the problem affected only UK outlets, but Iceland has confirmed that its eight stores in the Republic had also withdrawn from sale the onion bhaji product because it was processed in the same facility as Perkins’ Premier Nuggets.

“Things are still at an early stage but we don’t believe anything else will be affected,” a Perkins spokesman said.

“A certain amount of action has been taken already. For legal reasons, we can’t discuss anything involving staff members, but other actions relevant to hygiene practices in general may be possible,” the spokesman added.

The spokesperson said Perkins was taking the issue seriously and was acting to improve the plant and enforce tougher hygiene laws. He said that the company had been approved by British standards officers and food inspectors.

Meanwhile, the company denied claims that its chicken nuggets contained 35.1% meat, not 41% as stated on packaging, a discrepancy which was asserted on the ITV programme.