Tesco named UK’s ‘worst supermarket’ for food safety

Supermarkets

Tesco has been ranked as the country’s “worst supermarket” for food quality after accounts of vomiting, diarrhoea and headaches.

Analysis of product recalls and alleged food poisoning, from consumer platform iwaspoisoned.com, put the grocer in last place for “safe and hygienic” shops.

However, Tesco hit back at the “extremely misleading” claims, noting the report did not take into account that it sold more products than competitors.

There were 115 reports of food poisoning from Tesco, the only supermarket to reach triple digits.

READ MORE: Tesco ‘most attractive’ grocer for private equity takeover

Its 33 product recalls were higher than any retailer bar Waitrose, whose rare cases of food poisoning kept it in fourth place.

Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s took up the final three positions, while Big 4 rival Morrisons came second.

Marks & Spencer was ranked top for food quality, with just four recalls and 26 alleged food poisonings – under a quarter of Tesco’s cases.

Earlier this month, Tesco was forced to recall its own-brand reduced fat salad cream because it posed a danger to customers with a milk allergy.

In a statement to the Grocery Gazette, Tesco said: “We take food safety very seriously and the information contained in this report is extremely misleading.

“The data relating to incidents of food poisoning are not from a legitimate data source.

“As the table does not take into account sales volume, it doesn’t reflect that as the biggest supermarket in the UK, we stock and sell more products than our competitors, which this report fails to adjust for.”

Based on Kantar data from 5 September, Tesco has the largest share of the grocery market at 27.3 per cent.

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