Frozen Food

[LouiseH]

Hi all,

I ordered some frozen food (fish food) online (unfortunately, I can't get what I need locally). When the order arrived it was defrosted so I complained.

I was a little surprised that the response from the vendor was that the frozen food normally arrives defrosted and as long as I refreeze it the quality is not effected (which is nonsense, but another issue).

Now that I have looked on the website I can see that it does state frozen food "may" arrive defrosted and that refunds are not offered.

The one big issue that I have with this is that the vendor made no attempt to send the order in a way that gave it any chance of arriving frozen. Other vendors that I have used include frozen ice packs but this had nothing.

Regardless of the T&C, where do I stand with statutory rights? I would have thought the goods were not of acceptable quality, or as described.

Advice would be appreciated.

 

[Witch consumer]

I think you would be surprised if you knew the amount of frozen food that arrives at supermarkets and is defrosted by the time it goes into the freezer, I have read somewhere very recently that it is fine to refreeze frozen food as long as it hasn't started to spoil but can't remember where I read it now.

I suppose the goods could loosely be described not 'as described' if they were ordered frozen and received defrosted although I don't think you can specify they were not of satisfactory quality as you don't know whether there was any deterioration.

What they write in their terms & conditions cannot override the law and you can reject goods ordered online within 7 days.

 

[ALewis]

Just for info; frozen food (or defrosted for that matter) would be considered to have accumulated 'extra' biological enzymes after 4 hours at room temperature - 4 hours is the rough time for the biological enzymes to re-awaken and multiply.
'extra' though is a very broad description, and the level of 'extra' depends on all sorts of conditions - such as pre-freeze biological control and the steps taken to minimise bacteria.

Anyway, thought I'd throw that nonsense in.