'Ill for days': Woolworths shopper's 'concerning' chicken photo
A Woolworths shopper claims meat purchased from the supermarket caused her to be “ill for days” after she took photos of several boxes of chicken breasts stacked next to a fridge inside a Melbourne store.
The customer share the images on the Woolworths Facebook page on Saturday.
After touching the top of one packet of chicken, she claimed it felt “almost room temperature”.
Raw chicken is classified as “potentially high-risk” for food contamination, according to the Victorian Government’s Better Health website.
“Food poisoning bacteria grow best in the temperature range between 5 °C and 60 °C. This is referred to as the ‘temperature danger zone’. This means that we need to keep perishable food either very cold or very hot, in order to avoid food poisoning,” the website reads.
The Woolworths customer said she returned 15 minutes later to see that most of the chicken was still out of the fridge and staff were slowly loading some onto shelves.
“I was ill for days after eating chicken wings purchased from the same store a few weeks ago and after seeing this, it explains it,” she wrote in her Facebook post.
The shopper shared photos of 27 boxes filled with raw chicken stacked next to a fridge.
She said the sight left her feeling “very concerned” and her post seemed to have the same effect on other shoppers.
“Thank you for sharing. This is my local store and I won't be buying my chicken from there anymore,” one person wrote in a comment.
A Woolworths spokesperson said the matter was being followed up with the store “urgently”.
“At Woolworths, we take food safety very seriously and are concerned about these claims,” the spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia.
“We have been in contact with the customer and are following the matter up with our store team urgently.”
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