What was up with this frozen dinner?

January 13, 2021 8:02 AM

I started eating a frozen dinner the other day (Amy's "country cheddar" bowl), and had a potato in my mouth when I realized that it tasted terrible- rotten, maybe? I spit it out and examined the rest of the dish. Some of it seemed fine, but some of the other potato chunks also smelled bad.

What happened? Is it most likely that something was wrong with the potatoes in their factory? I bought this via curbside pickup at a grocery store, and it's also possible that it had thawed too much...the box felt slightly soggy when I was putting it away, though I didn't inspect it closely. I'm wondering if I should contact the manufacturer (also I accidentally already recycled the box it came in). Thankfully, it didn't make me sick.

posted by pinochiette to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Definitely contact them, let them know, they'll want all the information you can give (date, store location, etc). They'll send you some coupons for free ones.
posted by wafehling at 8:11 AM on January 13, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'd contact them and also the grocery store. Especially the grocery store -- if you know when you bought it, they might be able to give the manufacturer the batch/date info.
posted by amtho at 8:29 AM on January 13, 2021

Agree with contacting them. I've had this happen a few times with frozen fruit or veggies so my guess would be something similar happened with their ingredient supplier. The company will probably want to know so they can see if their quality control needs to be adjusted.
posted by randomnity at 8:48 AM on January 13, 2021

Definitely possible something ELSE got mixed in with your tubers, or it was just a bad one.

You'll need the box for the manufacturing batch info, and if you still have it photo of the bad stuff if possible.

The stuff we get in these meals are processed in machines automatically without human intervention, automatic washers, peelers, etc. It's POSSIBLE something else got through, though it'd be VERY rare.
posted by kschang at 10:15 AM on January 13, 2021

I've gotten frozen meals from sketchy grocery places that were amazingly both frozen and moldy, so honestly quality control is sometimes an issue.
posted by aetg at 5:51 PM on January 13, 2021

One time, I purchased an Amy's veggie lasagna that had gone completely bad (when I opened the wrap after microwaving it, it smelled like vomit). It was really weird and surprising and never happened again.
posted by unknowncommand at 7:06 PM on January 13, 2021

I would assume the cooling chain got interrupted at some point. That is, it may have been fine when it left the factory, but something went wrong during transport.
posted by Omnomnom at 7:06 AM on January 14, 2021