Woody's Supermarket, Stroud Green: Totally disgusting

andy

I bought a pack of mixed italian salad from Woody's. I opened it, grabbed a few leaves, washed them and put them in a salad. I left the packet on the side as I ate my dinner. When I started to clear up, I noticed this:  A big snail had crawled out of the salad box and was exploring its new country.  Pretty grossed out,(and pausing only to take a couple of grainy photos with my phone) I immediately took the salad box back to the shop to show to the management. The man behind the counter laughed when I showed him the salad box with a snail on it. He said 'Why don't you throw it away? Pick up another one from over there" whilst chuckling at the funny snail. I went looking for another member of staff. I found a couple closing the freezer. I showed them the salad box, with the snail still attached. "Oh" said the woman. "Well, you can get another one". I explained I didn't really want another one. "It's not our fault," she said. "Anyway, some people eat them." I looked at her. She looked at me. That was clearly the end of the conversation. So I walked out. I'm pretty grossed out and I'm appalled at the customer service. So I'm not going to there again. I've been a reasonably good customer of theirs, but that's done. Let's not forget that the Black Sea BBQ (formerly Woody's Grill) was massively fined for having rats living in the oven. So should I take it any further? If so, what should I do?

flembo

Not great on the customer service. I had a large moth in a bag of spinach that survived the fridge and then my putting it in a pan. Took it outside. A snail though, that's quite unusual.

dion

I suppose it is not Woody's fault unless it is Woody's branded salad. If not, then who made the salad? You should sue them for damages or report them to the council and ruin their humble, snail loving livelihoods.

tosscat

It's only a snail. One reason for washing salad is to get rid of creepy crawlies and things - it's their world too.

tosscat

And unless it's carrying the bilharzia parasite I thing the health risk is minimal.

andy

OK, at minimum, I expected: 1. an apology 2. the offer of a refund 3. a promise that they would try and work out how it happened I didn't get any of this. I got a patronising, rude and evasive answers. They made it clear they didn't care. "It's not our fault" doesn't cut it. It's in their shop and they're selling it. They didn't put the snail in the packet, but they're working with suppliers who do. If you don't care about the quality of stuff you're selling, you're going to sell crap. If you sell crap, I don't want to shop there. If people don't shop there, you'll go out of business. It's pretty simple.

andy

And Bilharzia snails are tiny.

Pete

You've eaten snails before.
You should have complained that your snail wasn't cooked

tosscat

The quality in Woody's is rubbish anyway though, both service and produce. The only good thing about it is that it's not Tesco.

Colette

I'm with Tosscat here - it's just a snail. If you bought your salad at the farmers market, you'd find snails and other creepy crawlies in there from time to time, and you wouldn't be upset. Or at least you ought not to be. And surely it's in an indication that it hasn't gone through the crazy modified air/bleaching/spraying thing that those evil salads in bags have undergone in tesco. Eurgh.

JoeV

Ditto. At least you know the greens were fresh. That snail looks quite robust. I’d be more upset if it was dead.

If you still have the lil guy I’d gladly adopt him or her

David

He looks like he's crawling into the box from those pictures. You sure he didn't rock up the garden steps onto the counter and think about having a little salad himself? Assuming its a he of course. Blame Boris.

tosscat

I picked some nettle tips on the Granville spinney to eat and had to wash them for about an hour there were so many little flies and things on them - I have much sympathy for organic farmers. Please don't go off on a comsuming dog wee tangent.

rainbow_carnage

I'm with Andy on this one. It's not directly Woody's fault, but they should have apologised, anyway.

A couple of years ago, I was having a lovely lunch at a place in Camden and found a rubber band in my salad. It was a green salad and a red rubber band. The only way that could've happened is if the salad hadn't been washed and mixed properly. The waitress didn't give a damn. I haven't been back since.

The problem with boycotting Woody's is that we don't have that many alternatives in the area. I usually have my groceries delivered by Ocado (when I can afford it) or Tesco (when I can't). But the latter always sends perishables that are a day away from their expiration date. I cannot eat an entire loaf of bread in 24 hours.

I should start go to markets, but I just can't get myself out of the house early enough in the morning.

tosscat

Markets are great if you are buying stuff for that day - otherwise they are rubbish. I've gone on about it before, but Riverford deliver a great vege box, and that lasts the week, generally. I keep meaning to try the bike cum organic veg market towards Archway, but keep forgetting.

katiejane

I agree with Andy too. The snail's not the point. It's the reaction of the staff which is key.

While we're on the subject of shit customer service the fucking postman put a card through the door on Saturday saying that we had a parcel without actually knocking on the fucking door. Twat.

@ rainbow_carnage - the simple solution to your problem with Tesco is to go to the store on SGR, select the stuff with the longest shelf life and carry it home yourself, no?

Four Eyes

Urgh. I had the same box of mixed leaves from Woody's for dinner last night. I usually do a Woody's shop on Monday after work when tesco's is always so packed it looks like everyone is preparing for a nuclear holocaust. No snails for me. *must check fridge when I get home from work*. I didn't even wash mine...

rainbow_carnage

We used to get Riverford boxes delivered every week. The quality and the service are excellent, but I've found that the veg selection doesn't suit our needs. Regardless of which box I ordered, it always came with a huge bag of carrots that we rarely used, a large bag of onions (I hate onions) and a pile of green leaves that I never know what to do with. I might give them another go this week.

@ katiejane - The Tesco Metro on SGR is only good for ready-meals. The veg selection is terrible, especially if you go in the evening. When I get up the motivation, I go down Sainsbury's in Camden. Both quality and selection is much better, but it's just a pain to carry everything home on the bus.

The Lidl is ok for certain things, too. I like the little chocolate wafers that they do. The veg and the cheeses are very cheap. Just don't buy any of their dodgy alcoholic beverages. Once, on a particularly stupid day, I bought a bottle of port. Had the pour it down the sink.

matt

Are you 100% sure the snail came from the salad and not from somewhere else in your kitchen? It looks to me like he's climbing into the box rather than out of the box, is all. We've been keeping the windows open recently to enjoy the weather and have found all manner of creepy crawlies around our flat. As for Woodys - they offered another salad. Perhaps that's as good as an apology in Turkey? I look at that as their admission of fault, even though it clearly wasn't.

Emma

@katiejane - the postman "delivered" a parcel to us, and put a note through the door letting us know that he had left it IN THE FOOD WASTE BIN!

matt

A package I had sent from the USA was lost, and I dream it happened in a similar way. Our postman is rubbish

Colette

The Islington farmers market on Sunday is open 'till 2pm, (for the late risers) has a whole host of fresh veggies (snails optional), which will last all week in the fridge and are cheaper than Riverford; plus you can choose what you want. It's a no-brainer, surely?

rainbow_carnage

If you're unhappy with your postman, don't even think of complaining to Royal Mail.

We used to have a problem with the early morning postman who delivers parcels. He never, ever rang the bell. We're almost always home in the mornings, but we still got a couple of those red card each week. When we arranged to have the parcels redelivered, he still wouldn't ring the bell. (And yes, we've checked the that the bell works.) So we had to have them redelivered to the post office and pay 50p each time for what is supposed to be a door-to-door service. This went on for months.

So I sent an e-mail to Royal Mail. Silly me. Two days later, the postman rang the bell. My husband opened the door. There was no parcel, but the guy wanted to interrogate him as to why we filed a complaint.

WTF?!

I phoned RM and had a bit of a spazz over them telling the postman that we were the ones who complained. After that, we got a new postman, who always rings the bell and never threatens members of my family. So it's all good.

David

I think we're all missing the point here. That snail looks like its climbing _in_.

tosscat

We had a sneaky squirrel climbing in our bedroom window the other morning, the cheeky thing, I'm sure it didn't pop out of a (horribly overpackaged) salad bag. While we're on the postman thing, I had a card popped through once saying I had a lovely parcel, got up early on Saturday to beat the queue at Green Lanes only to be told they couldn't find it. They were unable to trace anything and said I should contact whoever sent it (I wasn't expecting anything). Beyond that there was no recourse at all, so whoever sent me a lovely parcel, thanks and all that, but what was it?

katiejane

@ Emma & rainbow_carnage - truly unbe-fucking-lieveble!!

I did ring to complain. The voicemail message says, and I quote: "If you are calling to arrange a redelivery, the quickest way is to come to the sorting office and pick up your parcel"

Who writes this stuff for fucks sake? (Sorry - I've come over all potty mouth today)

@ David - I know we don't usually see eye to eye, but I have to concur, the snail does look like it's crawling in to the salad.

matt

David and katiejane, I said it looks like it was climbing in half way through my last post.

andy

Ridiculous. No way was it climbing in. It climbed out. I saw it climb out. The salad was a few metres from the window, we're on the first floor and most importantly, I SAW THE BLOODY THING CLIMB OUT. Do you all work for Woodys?

andy

And none of this "it's organic/it's not been treated" argument stands up. Just because "organic/pesticide free" food might have snails in it, doesn't mean that if it's got snails in it it's not been treated with anything. Tsk, did no-one else study necessity and sufficiency in formal logic? Sack of cack.

matt

You should have said you saw it climb out, then! Your first post is definitely past tense, after the fact. And it sounds like you were _not_ present for the event.

andy

"A big snail had crawled out" what's ambiguous about this? armchair detectives, the lot of you.