a meal delivery service gave me small plastic pieces in my meatballs

Hey there, tecomsin!

I am very sorry to catch up here and to learn of your difficulties with this meal company.

Personally, I think they are blowing you off, for which I am very sorry.
I used to be a corporate business manager to a large chain of restaurants. If anyone, and I do mean anyone, had any problem, any problem at all. we not only comped all meals at the table, we also gave a gift certificate for each person at the table to visit again, at no charge. No exceptions, unless an exception was made to comp the guests even more for some reason.

The way I look at this is: Food businesses are responsible for the safety of the food they serve, always. Always. No exceptions. Now, there may be some time when things are not up to par. It is more likely the issue(s) are rather chronic. Have you ever reviewed the State Health Inspection Reports on area restaurants? All of the area reports are published in the local papers here. The very same establishments continue to fail or have extremely low scores.. It tends to change only if: the restaurant has been penalized by being shut down for awhile and/or if the establishment changes hands. They have every opportunity and lots of incentives to do better, yet they do not.

I may be too hard on these establishments? I don't think so, from my point of view. It takes a lot for restaurants to meet all of the expectations of the State Board of Health and to pass the inspections with flying colors. Yet, the businesses highly invested in doing well and in keeping things healthy and safe, pass with flying colors, over and over again! Just as the same places fail, over and over again.

I might be more likely to understand IF tecomsin's meal was heated at a commercial garage while she was awaiting a car repair, or some other similar situation.

All kitchens, even those of very small home-based companies, must pass strict inspections. There is no reason, whatsoever,for there to be any contaminant or any foreign body in anyone's food. If it happens anyway, the establishment/business involved had better be falling all over itself showing both concern and remorse.

The consumer and the restaurant/food service are free to settle the issue on their own, of course.
There may be reasons, of which I am not aware, as to why some people may be reticent to report such experiences to health officials.
(For instance it is entirely possible someone has been a long-time patron of an establishment and knows, beyond any reasonable doubt, that such an incident is definitely an aberration from how business is usually conducted. There may be other reasons, as well. I am seeing this from the viewpoint/standards of a highly dedicated food business manager looking out for the health and the overall welfare of all customers, at all times No exceptions.)

In either case, the company involved should be showing a huge amount of responsibility, a boatload of concern, for the health and welfare of the customer(s) and a great deal of concern for the ways in which other customers might be affected/protected. If not, they are blowing the whole incident, and their responsibilities, off entirely.

I hope both of you, tecomsin and fern, never have similar experiences. It's very disheartening, to say the least.

(Believe it or not, the experiences you have both endured are the nightmare of responsible food service staff, managers and of corporate offices. Many will respond accordingly, especially in the current days of internet reviews, etc.)

Just an FYI: I do not know what is becoming of food safelty, supplement safety, etc. I had been taking capsules of ginger root for months. One day, I was out of fresh ginger root and wondered if I might be able to make a decent cup of tea with the powdered ginger root in the capsules of the supplement form. I opened one up and there were chunks of some type of hard, glassy plastic objects in the powder, inside of the capsule. I opened several more and did find some of the same in another capsule.

I was very disheartened. I did report it to the corporate offices of the company (via certfied letter), to the State Health Department, to the Better Business Bureau (as they tend to make the business(es) make things right with the consumer and the files remain for the public to review should they ever check the BBB records/filings)), etc,

Unfotunately, it seems all too common for there to be foreign objecst in foods. A part of the problem may be that the public, in general, may not demand better. People often view events like these as just a part of today's busy society, etc. (I do not think everyone should report in every case. I do , however, believe that if more cases were reported, the standards might not slide downward, or at least not so rapidly. Just my 2 cents. Lol. )

Hey WC, thanks for your responses. I am sorry to hear you have also had a problem with foreign objects in your food/supplements. I decided to send another email to the company asking them if they still wanted to pick up the piecs of plastic I found in their meat, or if they had figured out how their food was contaminated.

They were supposed to get back to me and given that they haven't I also don't believe that they got in contact with all the other people who ordered this dish.

The plastic was deeply embedded in the meat balls so it was clearly there when it was being mixed together.

I decided I may get in touch with the health authority next week if I don't get an answer from them that they are taking this seriously rather than just blowing me off.

As you suggested I did review the health inspection reports for this establishment and they are all fine.

ps I was also really shocked that they didn't offer any gift certificate or anything more than a refund for that single meal. I had ordered 4 or 5 meals a week from them for the last three months.

Hi! I am glad to see you back around. I am just sorry you have been going through this event and have been trying to find a viable resolution.. It can take a toll on anyone.

I am SHOCKED you were not offered more than the compensation of that one meal. It makes no sense to do that. It does nothing for you. They bought back their own "contaminated'" meal. That is it. ??? I do not know just who makes those decisions; I think this decision is remiss.

I am now wondering as to the size and the age of this company? These two factors can make a huge difference as well. Sometimes, younger or greener managers do not know what to do when something like this happens. If the business is new and/or is struggling financially, they may not have much they feel they can offer because they haven't enough money to offer much.of anything.

I wonder about this business and wonder how old, how stable, how profitable it is at this time.

Even so, someone should have immediately and fully attended to this situation in satisfactory manner.
It would not surprise me if there are guidelines these businesses must follow if/when they receive these types of complaints.
It all seems so very remiss.

You can guess your options better than anyone here, as you live in a different area than some of us, with some different agencies. Additionally, you are a very bright and a very logical person!

Edit: To be fair, now that I think of it, I was able to offer patrons a great deal of immediate compensation because the business was HUGE and giving away large amount of comped meals, gift cettificates, etc,, caused no hardship at all to the corporation.. It is likely to be very different for small businesses, new businesses ,etc.

I hope all else is going well for you, tecomsin! You do cross my mind and I do wonder how you are getting on in life!

Well the company owner stopped by today and picked up the envelop with the two pieces. I asked them to keep the envelop and pieces securely as evidence in case anyone wanted to look at it eventually.

They said later that they think this material came from their supplier of ground beef tenderloin and is called silverskin, so it wouldn't be plastic but some inedible piece of the cow.

After some back and forth they understood that having 1/2 inch pieces of material that resembles plastic in their ground beef is abnormal for Canada and needs to be reported once the source is determined.
He is waiting for their chefs to come in during the week and will get back to me.

It's a big relief to find out it probably wasn't plastic I ate. I ordered from a different meal service company and am awaiting delivery today. Ordered Indian food yesterday and have got lots of left overs if for some reason they don't show up.

Hey WC, it is a small family run business and has been operating since 2017. I think they genuinely want to do the right thing but may not always know how, or it doesn't register as serious with them that I thought for about a week I had ingested plastic.

So this new meal service company has a delivery window between 1 and 5 pm and delivered after 4:50pm. My door bell doesn't work so I have to listen for the knock and i am hard of hearing. I was just getting ready to send off an email asking why it hadn't been delivered, but the food arrived.

Ever since I thought i had eaten plastic I have kind of lost my appetite. At least I am trying a new food company. I don't want to develop a phobia of eating prepared food.

Silver skin does indeed feel chewy and plastic like. Hopefully that solves the mystery for you.

Glad your trying another service. Left overs are great !

Hi Christina,

Yeah i tried to pull and tear apart the pieces once I found them, unsuccessfully. They were very thin, like plastic and over 1/2 inch long. The owner says they use extra lean cuts of beef and that could make the silver skin tougher but this looked like no material I had ever seen and I had never gotten pieces like this in ground beef.

I want them to report this to the appropriate place. It doesn't belong in our food supply in Canada.

well they are blowing me off saying these 1/2+ inch pieces of a thin plastic like material that I couldn't chew or pull apart by hand are 'unpalatable' rather than 'inedible'. They are keeping the same supplier and continuing to serve this ground beef to their customers and say they haven't received any other complaints about it.

They are not offering any more than their initial refund of the meal itself.

I won't be ordering anymore from this company and am debating the next step, if any. I asked them to keep the material pieces I found in my meatballs as evidence in case anyone wants to look at it in the future.

These were the two pieces of inedible material I extracted from the meat balls.

I’d report them to the health department regardless if they were helpful or not.

There unwillingness to try and do the right thing as by refund or offer for trying other meals free, poor business skills.

As for the plastic ? They have probably tossed it out right away, it’s a “ he said she said “ situation now , sad. You no longer have any proof.

I’m glad you are trying a different meal service. Hopefully you find one with quality products and good service.

Those do look like they could be silverskin. Next time you go to a grocery store, look at like a raw pork tenderloin filet, or a flank steak - they are covered in that stuff. You cannot chew it. The ladies on americas test kitchen say to take a boning knife and slice off as much of it as you can without taking too much meat with it. I am super picky about that stuff, chicken veins, fat, gristle, etc. I am lots of fun at a bbq! Pass me the coleslaw!

It was inside a meatball, not visible. I only noticed it because I was havign a lot of difficulty chewing some pieces and eventually broke the last meatball apart and started looking through it. This is what was in the ground meat.

I agree, unaluna, it is probably silverskin but I thought it was plastic because I couldn't tear it apart.

Hi Christina,

Thanks for writing. I am not sure what I will do next, if anything. They gave me a refund for the meal itself, but that was it.

Maybe they have tossed it but i have written proof that I asked them to keep the inedible pieces in case someone wants to look at it later.

I am doing much better with the other meal service. They have a larger variety, and better food, anyway, so I am glad I made the switch.

Just on a conceptually related note, about two years ago, I was enjoying some Ben and Jerry's Vanilla Toffee Crunch ice cream at the place I had stepped down to after a very long hospitalization. Suddenly, I bit down hard on something cold and metallic. I reached in and pulled out about 3/4 of a molar, which was just destroyed. I also pulled out about a 4 mm by 8 mm piece of shiny alloy that looked a lot like part of a bolt. It was quite heavy and substantial for being so small. I emailed B&J and they responded very quickly. I informed them that I was not a person who sues people, but that they were going to fix my tooth for me. They did. Pretty good company. Except when pieces of their machinery are being mixed in with their ice cream.

Hey pbcyclist, thanks for sharing your story and I'm glad it didn't turn out too badly for you and you were able to get your teeth fixed at no cost to you.

I tried to post a review for this meal service but it is not appearing publicly. I have checked that my post is not violating any rules or raising red flags for an algorithm to detect. I am pretty frustrated that I wasn't able to post my review for that company.

To make sure there was no problem with my account I made another review for a different place. It was a positive review and that review was accepted, only the one I actually wanted to appear it is being censored by google for some unknown reason.

Well I tried various changes to get my post past the google review censor, but didn't work out. I did manage to post the review on a different company's site so I feel like if anyone googles the company name now they will at least be able to find my review.

So i couldn't get my review past the google censor, so I just deleted it from my contributions and logged into google from a different account. Then i tried to post a new review, and was careful not to write anything that might trigger a flag. This time the review went through so I am happy about that!

I'm on to my third delivery service. I hope it works out with this one because I don't think there are more where I live.

With the second meal delivery service, I had overcooked pasta in one dish, missing ingredients in a salad where purple cabbage was substituted for tomatoes, and gristly beef in a stir fry that was unpalatable. In fact I couldn't eat it.

I did write and let them know but I think they have quality control issues in their kitchen.