No Frills Vancouver shopper finds live bugs in sealed onion powder
“Super gross and disgusting.” That’s how David Albano recounted finding unidentified, live insects in a sealed bag of seasoning from a Vancouver grocery store.
Albano told Dished he purchased No Name Onion Powder from Joti’s No Frills in Vancouver (310 W Broadway) on May 17, 2024, and noticed the bugs, moving, inside the package the same day.
He then emailed No Frills, and a customer service representative responded by saying matters like this issue are taken “very seriously” and they planned on “taking the opportunity to look into this further.”
In a follow-up email to Albano, the Loblaw-owned Canadian chain of discount supermarkets apologized and further explained its investigation into what it calls a “highly isolated incident.”
The manufacturer of the product, along with our Quality Assurance team, have conducted a thorough investigation. The results indicate this to be a highly isolated incident, and no evidence of pests was found within the retention sample.
These measures make us confident in the quality of this product, and I hope they reassure you that the no name onion powder are produced in a highly controlled environment by an extremely reputable vendor.
No Frills Customer Support proceeded to offer Albano 10,000 PC Optimum points or a $10 gift card for his trouble.
“I am not satisfied with their response. I asked them to not just refund my purchase and that’s basically what they did,” Albano tells Dished in an email.
“I feel like them offering me $10 is a bit of a slap in the face.”
Albano has not accepted the offer for the gift card or the PC Optimum points.
He says he doesn’t have an exact answer for what he deems a sufficient response from the company regarding this incident but concludes what was offered wasn’t satisfactory.
“I tried to give them a heads up and deal with a kind of gross situation properly and [was] just disappointed with their response.”
Loblaw Public Relations responded to Dished’s request for comment on this matter.
“We take food safety and quality very seriously, and customers may always return a product or contact our customer care team if they have concerns.”
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