Foster’s says mistakes were made
Woody Foster at Foster’s Food Fair in Savannah
(CNS): The owner of Foster’s Food Fair has said that mistakes were made in handling a situation on Monday where customers found a bug in a plate of food from the store in Countryside Shopping Centre in Savannah. Woody Foster said that the customers bought two plates of food Saturday morning and in one of them, the ackee and codfish, they found a bug.
Stressing that the supermarket chain complies with all environmental health requirements and does everything it can to prevent such occurences, Foster admitted that they erred when the customer returned the plate of food. Apparently, the plate of food was weighed again and they were refunded for the food returned but not the food on that plate that had been eaten, a fact that has been shared widely on social media.
Foster said that he was in contact with the customers to sort the matter out, but admitted that it had not been handled as it should have been.
He also stressed that finding a bug in the food from Foster’s was an incredibly rare occurence and had almost never happened in their 35 years of operations. He said their food service area was kept clean and they were inspected regularly by the Department of Environmental Health.
Following Saturday’s incident, Foster’s called the DEH and an officer conducted an investigation and will report on what he found, Foster said.
Category: Environmental Health, Health
its a bugs life
All you clowns complaining about the deli food you love so much would do well to realise it exists as a way to minimise losses on food about to spoil.
kirks have open buffet style as well. I’ve seen flies around there.
Oh. My. God. Why can’t we just live inside plastic bags. I hate the world. Yuck!
You do know that many of the common “food colourings” are made of crushed bugs, right?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/red-food-dye-cochineal-bugs_us_56fafd25e4b083f5c605f3dd
I take my hat off to Woody Foster for apologizing publicly about this complaint. He has only carried forward what his Dad would have done. I too agree with some of the other writers about having two or three staff serve the food. I have seen and not only at Fosters work men dipping up soup with soup draining down their wrists. We might end up with lines but since some folks cant be careful then everybody pays. I now take this opportunity to thank Mr Foster for making an announcement when the Hurricane Irma was approaching telling the community not to panic as the supplies would not be affected. A real Businessman. I shop there almost every day and will continue to support them as long as I can eat.
I see parents encouraging their kids to put their poopy little hands in food and steal/eat it.
From knowing FFF when it first opened and the staff was mostly Caymanians I thought it was as clean and well kept as any other food place on the Island.
Then comes along cheap labor and sounds like you are getting the labor that you are paying for. That don’t care about working or the quality of work they do or anything else. That kind of results do happen when you don’t have good management that stay on top of high quality operations and everything falls apart including the business.
As usual, bashing expat workers! Personally, I have eaten from Foster’s Deli for over twenty years, and never had a problem at all. Why is negativity such a popular indulgence on CNS? I find both the expat bashing and the negativity disgusting. Again I ask, Cayman Kind??? Not so kind at all.
This happened before and I called him personally, he thank me for calling . It was in 2010 that I bought a salad from the strand took it to work , was just about to finish my lunch, when I noticed a huge what we call in Cayman a ‘Horse Fly’. Never bought any salads or cooked /prepared meals from FFF again. Couldn’t forget that experience .
How is it the person serves their own food and didn’t see the bug until they opened the container to eat the food ? Fosters has a buffet style service and the plate would have been empty to begin with. I guess it may have been in the food but wouldn’t they have seen it ? Maybe it got contaminated after they left the store ?
WOODY my family and I still support you. Since there are persons on this talking about you not hiring caymanians- I know you try to hire and keep them but most are too damn lazy and want an ac job where the only finger lifted is on a computer! They don’t want manual work.
Keep up the good job I’m a life long shopper at The Strand and thank you for the recent upgrades there. Yes to the comment on considering the hot bar served by your staff in a more stable and controlled manner.
Thanks Woody! Great job always you surely work hard.
The reason they can not get Coaymanians are because they pay so little and the poor cashiers have to stand for an entire shift. Everyone is looking for the best working environment.
The poor cashiers have to stand for 8 or 9 hours?That’s pretty standard in the work force unless you have an office job. Pretty sure Fosters follows labor laws which include 2 15 minute paid breaks and 30 min lunch in a 9 hour shift. Not to mention anything over 9 hours is time and a half. It’s called working for a living folks. Moaning about it on social media everyday instead of going after a job, is not going to solve your issues. It’s not rocket science.
prob typed this while sitting at your “computer” at your “ac job”
Lots of people sit in AC all day, doesn’t mean they work less than you or that the work is easier.
That’s a common misconception, that people who “sweat” for a living work harder. When the brain is tired, so is the body.
E.G. Collecting garbage is easier than auditing accounts for companies; jus’ sayin’.
Use this experience to become better. I agree with improvements needed and have called to complain but I love Fosters. Woody delt with a complaint I had one time. He told me that he was coming to meet me outside as I called from the car. He was pleasent and professional.
Learn from all of this. It can only make you better. Still love my store.
Just from observation it’s really not sanitary when your different walks of life digging through breakfast and lunch. I have seen construction workers, garbage workers, pet care givers and the likes dishing their food out. Certain this process is not ideal and is open to the flies and bugs that will take a bite from the fruits and vegetables that out in the various food stations.
I personally only like lawyers and bankers sneezing on my food. Construction worker, no thank you! Yuck.
I shop at Fosters CountrySide quite often…but have avoided their deli food service areas for some years now. I’ve also made my observations known to their management, who admitted they were aware of improvements needed but the Foster family member (not Woody) who was responsible for the food service area was resistant.
When compared to Hurley’s Deli, Fosters fails in this area i’m much afraid!
Wow, they really only refunded what was uneaten? For crying out loud. They should have refunded the entire purchase PLUS a free meal. That’s pretty bad customer service.
How do you know it was a bug from Fosters not a bug that flew into the food outside.? And….how do you know this is not the old “bug in my food ” trick to get a free meal…?
Who would go all that length for a free meal?
But yes … its possible that the bug may have flew into the food outside.
Lots of people would do it for a free meal. They walk around the store eating and not paying for a free meal as well.
That’s besides the point. I’ve been in customer service for over 10 years & currently lead a team. I can tell you that when one customer complains to their friends it gets more notice than the good things. Sure people will still eat at fosters, but I am sure that a lot of people wont now because of reading this. To this day I have not eaten from Latin Taste because of their episode 5 years ago. Don’t make policy’s ruin your reputation.
I still dont eat at Burger King as a result of the mayonnaise episode 20 years ago.
That was more like 30 years ago!
Terrible customer service and a PR nightmare. Customer treatment a reflection of leadership – or lack thereof !
Disagree. After reading the article, Woody did the best he could given the situation. Even called DEH after for a quick inspection. Not bad.
Instead of people using social media to circulate news of bugs in Foster’s food, they should be organizing a boycott of Foster’s until they employ a majority Caymanian workforce! Something else that has “almost never happened in 35 years of operation”.
unemployed Caymanians wont bag groceries or run registers as its above them. remember Capt Charles Kirkconnell brought the first Filipinos into Cayman to work in order to fill positions at Kirk’s as no Caymanian would do the work
ummm don’t you mean that it’s beneath them?? 🙂
Pretty sure Capt. Charles imported cheap labour. That’s all that is.
You are obviously ignorant of the decades of social service by the Fosters .
Native breeding program needed in Cayman. Come on Caymanians, you are not enough in number!
Please do not encourage that unless they are prepared to work and rear their offsprings properly.
to be honest, am Caymanian by birth and would not want one thing to do with a Caymanian relationship
To be honest, the entire world needs to be sterilized now. TOO many people.
Stop breeding like rabbits!
You got people in there 30’s that are grand-parents! WTF!
Oh good lord, here we go….
Wrong, they are always trying to hire Caymanians. Some Caymanians really don’t want to work, period! They rather stand outside the supermarket door and beg. I have decided not to give them a red cent. Go inside and ask woody if there is a vacancy.
Fosters will only care about hiring locals when she gets enough competition and short of cash. For now she remains a fat and prosperous cow. She can hire and fire who she pleases, and government is just another tick on her back.
And do you think government would dare penalize an economic supplier like her? Do you not see how scared they are to touch the Chamber of Commerce, or touch CUC or Dart. Like I said, the real bug size entity here is government ?
I loathe Fosters Food Fair, but they always hire Caymanians first. So I do not know what you are talking about. They suck as a grocery store, not as a local employer.
Hmmm protein
What’s the big deal? Bugs are a part of life.
Thanks Woody you are a gentleman and a great businessman thanks for the explanation and I will always be a customer of FFF
Woody, I have a suggestion for you. Please do over your food counters at Countryside and get some like what Hurleys use whereby the food is dished up by your staff from the back of the counter with the front closed. I am so tired of seeing persons digging almost wrist deep in the food, especially construction workers with cement particles on their hands. Also something should be done about the flies buzzing around. I do not aim to cause embarrassment but the food counters need a good overhaul before I can eat from there again.
I personally spoke to tanya numerous times about this and showed her photos but im not elite my voice and $ dont matter. Sad and disgusting
I have been to hurlers and the servers had to remove flies from the mash potatoes so please we live in the tropics where flies and bugs are prevalent.
“Almost never happens!”
Well, that’s a ringing endorsement!
Planes alomost never crash too.
I am do realise operating a kitchen be it in a supermarket or restaurant must be a very difficult thing to do in the tropics. Even at home inotice a stray scorpion or centipede and cannot figure out where it squeezed in through so have to get the control guys in once or twice a year. It is something that has to be done.
“Exo” Cricket protein bars made with cricket flour are quite nutritious.