A butcher has shed light on why turkeys often spoil before Christmas Day, following reports that some families had their special day “ruined” thanks to a spoiled bird.
It’s not really the festive season without its share of kitchen disasters, yet finding your turkey rotten when you start preparing is certainly not on anyone’s wish list.
But such was the unfortunate reality for numerous individuals who aired grievances about their ruined festive fowls on social media yesterday. Reports suggest turkeys acquired from popular supermarkets like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and Lidl had been branded as ‘rancid’, ‘green’, and ‘smelled so bad’ even though they weren’t past their use-by dates.
Consequently, there were claims that Christmas had been totally ‘ruined’. According to one family-run butchers, there is a certain reason why turkeys bought from supermarkets may not last until Christmas Day – and it’s very simple.
As previously explained by the experts at Tomlinsons Farm Shop in Nuneaton, supermarket turkeys are especially prone to this problem because they are sometimes slaughtered as much as a month before Christmas, The Mirror explains. After the birds are dispatched, they are packaged with carbon dioxide pumped inside to replace the oxygen, staving off bacteria growth.
The turkeys are then kept just above freezing point. If the bags holding individual birds get punctured, allowing oxygen to enter, the turkey can “rapidly” deteriorate and become “rancid”.
Yet, whether this issue truly caused the widespread turkey troubles this year hasn’t been established conclusively.
A Sainsbury’s customer took Twitter to tell the supermarket their Christmas was ruined. They said: “Well done Sainsbury’s @sainsburys Christmas is officially ruined! I’ve just got the turkey out of the fridge and it’s rotten! It smells so bad I can’t believe you could sell this? #christmasruined”
Lidl also had a problem, with a customer saying the crown they bought on Friday, December 20, for £17.17, was“rancid”.
They posted: “Just a heads up as I’d hate for anyone open theirs up Christmas morning and there be no shops open selling turkeys. I’ve just gone to wash and marinate my turkey ready for Wednesday and it was fully RANCID inside! Smells awful and the meat had turned green!
“Bought fresh from Lidl Woodhouse Lane on Friday, dated 26th Dec and been stored at the back of my fridge since bought so there’s absolutely no reason for it to be off. And there’s me thinking buying fresh would be better than frozen this year.”
The Daily Record has contacted Sainsbury’s and Lidl for comment.
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