Episode 3 Rip Off Britain

There's a lot we don't know about the food on our plates and the shops

and the labels don't always tell you the whole story.

I think they encourage you to buy more than you need and that causes

a lot of waste.

Whether you are staying in or going out,

you've told us that you can feel ripped off by the promises made

for what you eat and indeed what you pay for it.

How do you know that it's half price?

So, what they've done,

they've bumped the price up and they've knocked it down.

From claims that don't stack up,

to the secrets behind the packaging,

we'll undercover the truth about Britain's food,

so that you can be sure you are

getting what you expect at the right price.

Your food, your money.

This is Rip Off Britain.

Hello and welcome once again to Rip Off Britain,

where this series, we're getting stuck into your problems

and concerns relating to food.

And today, we're tackling difficulties that crop up with

something that quite literally

surrounds almost every tasty morsel we eat.

Yes, we're talking about issues to do with packaging and I hate it!

That was heart-felt, Gloria.

And I think it's fair to say that

there is more to some of the information

that you'll find printed there than meets the eye.

Manufacturers, of course, are constantly evolving

and changing the way that they pack and wrap our foods.

They don't always make things easy for us,

whether that's with opening the packages itself and stand by for

some classics in that, or with

the details that you're going to find on it.

And, as ever, we're following up your complaints about packaging,

because you've told us that some of what's printed on a product can be

confusing or even misleading.

-Well, we love a challenge, don't we?

-Don't we just!

So, we're going to try to make sense of it all and as we do,

there'll be some surprises and plenty of tips to help you find

the food you want at the price you want to pay for it.

Coming up, we're on the trail of the farms

you might assume from the label produce your supermarket foods -

does it matter if they don't exist?

I cannot see why they use generic

and fictitious names if they are

proud of the product that goes in them.

And we take on a tin that's proving

too tough to tease open for some of you.

All it's doing is depositing bits of paint and bits of metal

into the bit what is actually open.

We'll see if we can find a new design

which will make it easier to crack.

Now, when it comes to food on the supermarket shelves,

the range of the stuff on sale has never been greater.

Do you know that in one supermarket, for example,

you can choose between more than 200 varieties of crisp?

I mean, how on earth are we supposed to choose?

Well, of course the packaging plays a huge part in influencing us and

manufacturers have entire teams of people dedicated to coming up with

new ways of making their product stand out.

And one thing that really has proved to work is if food labels suggest

that a product is home-grown

or comes from a farm, but spoiler alert,

it seems not all the farms you may be tempted by

are necessarily what you think.

Our enthusiasm for locally-sourced

food shows no sign of slowing down...

We believe in the great British farmer...

..and judging by these adverts,

it's something the supermarkets have been quick to cash in on.

We'll stop at nothing to provide you with great produce at a great price.

Whether it's James Martin looking at lettuces from a farm for ASDA...

Now, this place can often be described as the salad bowl of the UK.

..Lidl showing a curious shopper around a beef farm...

My beef is all Scots assured and this is the stuff they're raised on.

Good Scottish grass.

..or Tesco cheese being produced on a lovely traditional farm...

I'm James and I work closely with our farmhouse cheesemakers to ensure

that Tesco have the finest.

..all these ads hammer home the message that supermarkets are as

keen as we are to have food that comes from UK farmers.

But, is that seemingly farm-produced product you pick up at your local

store quite as British as you might think?

Or indeed as some of the labels might have you believe?

It was frustration about that which prompted retired dairy farmer

Ian Bailey to write to us.

We go to our local supermarket at least once a week,

mainly it would be meat products or fresh food.

On one particular visit to his local Tesco,

Ian noticed the supermarket had a new range of foods branded with

the names of farms.

Based on the packaging, he imagined the products came from UK farms,

but when he took a closer look at the label on some tomatoes

he found that wasn't the case at all.

Not all of them actually came from the UK

despite the very English farm names.

There were products there that came from continental countries,

and yet the name on the products certainly led me to believe

that they were a British product.

Ian felt thoroughly misled,

so he complained to his local store and asked for more information about

the farms named on the labels.

To his surprise, he was told that they weren't real farms.

In fact the names were totally made up.

I felt really annoyed and probably I felt deceived, to be honest.

The line that was taken was

that they had satisfied all of the packaging standards

that they had to legally comply with and basically they were

going to do absolutely nothing about it whatsoever.

Ian remains convinced the labelling of these products is misleading.

But Tesco isn't the only supermarket to cotton on to the fact that a hint

of farm freshness can make products more appealing.

Other big names do something similar.

So, to find out exactly how much of a difference it makes,

I've set up a stall here in Eastgate Market in Gloucester.

We've labelled some products with a made-up farm name that sounds

particularly charming and put them alongside identical food with a

more straightforward label,

to see which my customers would be more likely to buy.

I want to know which of those would you be attracted to?

The farm on all of them, I would imagine.

-And why would that be?

-Because I'm an ex-farmer.

THEY LAUGH So you are biased?

Yes. Biased.

If I'm not looking at the price,

I would look then at the product itself.

So the issue of it being labelled as a farm product doesn't really figure

-with you when you're shopping?

-No. Not at all.

The label, you know, it makes me feel that

it's kind of like organic kind of thing.

You know what I mean? Quite fresh and not chemical and stuff.

-The same with this one.

-Is the concept of farm important to you?

I'd probably be more likely to buy that.

Would it surprise you to know that these farms don't exist?

Well, a little bit.

How would you feel about that?

Like I was being lied to.

Well, out of the four people we asked,

three said they'd be more likely to

buy the products with the farm labels.

Which is why brand expert Phillip Adcock believes that creating these

ranges is a no-brainer for the supermarkets.

Branding a product as a farm type has lots of positives to it.

For a start, anybody who thinks something at a farm is going to be fresher.

It's got to be more healthy. It's not so mass produced.

So people like the farm connotation.

When you ask yourself whether the supermarket's doing anything wrong,

and they have a moral responsibility,

I think they're only doing something morally wrong if they're cutting out

the British farmer in favour of cheaper imports.

So, if British farmers are losing out to foreign farmers under

the guise of it being a British farm product that it isn't,

then they probably have some moral questions to ask themselves.

Well, earlier this year, following controversy over the origin

of produce labelled with the names

of farms that don't exist, another supermarket chain, Aldi,

announced that it would now only source its farm range from the UK.

But for the National Farmers' Union, that doesn't go far enough.

In July, 2016,

it complained to Trading Standards that the farm ranges sold at Tesco

and other supermarkets could be misleading for shoppers.

That complaint was passed on to the Food Standards Agency,

but when we chased it up,

we were told that as a labelling issue it had been referred on again,

this time to the Government agency, DEFRA.

So, we called DEFRA and were told that the issue here was branding

and not labelling. Their advice, contact Trading Standards.

In other words, back to square one.

Since then, the NFU has been told by DEFRA that Trading Standards have

now been instructed to deal with this labelling issue.

NFU member Matthew Rymer

has long campaigned for total transparency and honesty

in the sourcing and production of meat across the UK.

He's far from happy about the supermarket's attempts to promote food that

gives the impression it's produced on the actual farms on the labels.

But he has an idea as to why Tesco

and the like may have decided to do it.

I think "farm" is one of the most widely abused words

in food and drink.

There remains a massive sympathy for farms and the retailers are playing

on that. But if you look behind the scenes,

you'll find that they're creating a very unsustainable food production

chain. Now, you might say, "We've got a nation to feed."

I say, "Yes, of course.

"But empower the consumer to make a decision."

But, in fact, Tesco are not breaking the law by choosing to label some

products in this way.

They're perfectly entitled and it makes,

probably, certainly in the short-term,

very good sense for their shareholders.

But Matthew wants consumers to know exactly where their meat

has come from. His cattle stock are part of a new initiative

which tracks food from source to table.

The so-called Happerley scheme uses a code on the packaging which

shoppers scan so that they can see

every stage of the product's journey.

It's like a passport.

When you take UK livestock, they all carry passports.

There's a wealth of information

that farmers have that is lost through the food chain

and a lot of people that have turned vegetarian because they

are not just quite sure where their meat is from.

And when you come across fake farm meat labels, as you do with Tesco,

wrapping up a piece of anonymous flesh, basically.

All you know is it's British, well, that's doing nobody a favour.

And there are others who say Tesco's labelling does nobody a favour by

conjuring up images of farms that don't exist,

or at least not in a way you might assume.

There are in fact farms with the names you will see on the packaging.

But when we called a few,

it was clear they've got nothing to do with Tesco.

One was an activity centre and another a restaurant.

But we also spoke to the owner of a Boswell Farm,

the name on some of Tesco's meat

and she's certainly got a beef with them.

Well, the plot thickens!

Situated in East Devon, the arable farm is also a collection of holiday

cottages and a pilates retreat.

Its owner Linda Dillon

has spent 22 years building up her business and isn't too happy that

Tesco is also using the Boswell name to market its products.

I went to my local Tescos and there were all these packages with

Boswell Farm written on them.

I really couldn't believe it

and I couldn't understand why they hadn't contacted me.

I was very upset

because I didn't see that this would be publicity that would benefit my

business in my way at all. In fact, it could do it harm.

But when she contacted Tesco,

Linda wasn't at all happy with its response.

In fact, it indicated it was in the process of trademarking the name.

I didn't feel they were very interested in what I had to say.

This name has been attached to this piece of land for 400 years.

And they said that I would have to wait and see

when their patent went through.

In the meantime, Linda says she's been contacted by people wondering

if her farm is the one on the Tesco label

and she's fed up with the whole business.

I would very much like Tescos to remove the name Boswell Farm from

their packaging because this was done without me knowing about it.

When we contacted Tesco about Linda's concerns,

it didn't comment on them specifically.

But on the broader issue of the naming of its farm ranges,

the supermarket reiterated that

these are brands rather than suppliers.

And it said that its customers,

two-thirds of whom had bought products from the ranges,

are savvy enough to know that one farm couldn't possibly supply

products on the scale that Tesco sells them.

It sold us that it sources the produce from...

..so that shoppers can buy their

favourite produce all year around,

and reiterated that every product is clearly labelled with its country of

origin, with the Union Flag displayed prominently

on all British produce.

But while Tesco says that the farm names on its packaging are simply

brands and don't in any way denote real farms, back in Dorset,

Ian still believes that they're not

making that clear enough on the labels.

I would like to see the name of the producer, the farm,

and the area that it is produced in.

And I cannot see why they use

generic and fictitious names

if they're proud of the product that goes in them.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain,

is it safe to reheat food that the label says you shouldn't?

We settle the debate for one concerned viewer.

I know a lot of my friends use the supermarket chicken and therefore

I'm just wondering if they're putting themselves at risk.

In the past on this programme we've investigated foods that some of you

have told us that you have a real struggle managing to eat.

Simply because you can't open the packaging.

Well, since our previous report,

you've continued to tell us about supposedly convenient foods that can

prove to be anything but, if you can't get into them.

And amongst the e-mails that you've sent us on this subject,

there's one particular product that stands out.

These tinned Fray Bentos pies.

A favourite with many of you, if only you could get at what's inside.

Well, we hate to see anyone suffer.

So, we set out to discover why the company can't seem to find an easier

way of packaging its pies.

Food has been sold in cans in the UK for decades.

Invented in the 19th century as a way to give sailors a supply of

fresh food whilst at sea,

tinned goods really caught on in the Second World War,

when they were shipped abroad to supply our troops.

Cut to the present day, and canned foods are a massive industry,

with tinned meat pies alone

accounting for around £17 million of sales.

And until recently, Simon Houghton from Worcester

had long been a fan of one of the best known and longest established

names in the pie business - Fray Bentos.

They're just handy to keep in the cupboard because being in the tin,

they've got a long life, so you've not got to worry about it,

using it in a couple of days.

If you finish work and you just want something that you ain't got to

prepare, in theory you could just open the tin and have a pie.

And what could be more low-maintenance than opening a tin and sticking it

in the oven? Well, on one occasion

Simon struggled even to get that far.

In total it took about 40, 45 minutes to open the tin.

And the tin opener I used was very similar to this one.

And as you can see, it just got nowhere. It just chews at the tin.

It just hurts your hand.

And all it's doing is depositing

bits of paint and bits of metal into the bit that's actually open.

It got to one point I was actually, like, trying to use a knife to prize

it open, to try and get the tin opener to connect.

And there was more than just a meal at stake.

With the family dinner so dramatically delayed,

Simon's wife was not happy.

After the length of time it took, tension was building up.

I was tired. All I wanted was my tea.

It caused a bit of tension in the household.

And I could say that night it just ended up going in the bin.

Fray Bentos does state

on its tins that a robust opener should be used.

But Simon had always thought that the tin opener in his drawer WAS robust.

He certainly didn't have problems opening anything else.

When Simon subsequently complained to the company,

it did recommend a specific brand of tin opener,

that it promised was up to the job.

But Simon doesn't see why he should need to buy a special new piece of

equipment for such an everyday task.

And across the country,

other pie fans are also struggling to release their steak and ales from

these metal prisons.

In addition to those that have contacted us,

some have recorded their rather unorthodox

tin-opening techniques online.

This thing does not open.

One broken one.

Two broken ones.

Now we're trying a new one. Here we go!

Should be "Fray Bentos tender, just starving"!

Halleluja! Bing bong!

Of course it's not just Fray Bentos tins that people can have

difficulties opening, or, indeed, simply pies.

The internet is awash with people kept hungry by the products of

a whole host of other manufacturers.

Take this corned beef lover,

who also posted her rather risky efforts online.

Well, obviously don't try that at home!

After seeing all that,

we're putting tins of all shapes and sizes and brands alongside those pie

tins in a not so scientific test

to see which is the hardest to get into.

And who better to tackle them than a couple of metal workers?

My name's Stuart Mitchell and I'm a knife maker.

I'm Andy Cole. I'm a forger in Portland Works.

Here in the traditional home of steelworking, Sheffield,

our two testers are armed with two ordinary tin openers like the ones

you've probably got at home, as well as the specific one

recommended by Fray Bentos to Simon when he complained.

Stuart and Andy's challenge is to open a mix of the kind of

tins that lurk in most people's cupboards,

using either the tin openers,

or, in some cases, the key supplied on the can.

So, they've a classic tin of tuna,

corned beef, some processed meat,

and, of course, those large Fray Bentos round pie tins,

and we're pitting them against each other, and against the clock,

to see who can open them the fastest.

All I can say is that I'm not too concerned about today's competition.

It'll be a good competition and hopefully I'll win.

Three, two, one...

-Go!

-All right, then.

First, they're using this butterfly tin opener -

perhaps the most familiar type of equipment for most of us.

While Stuart's flying around the tuna tin with it,

Andy's encountering some teething problems.

Oh, what the hell's this?

But once he's got a grip and mastered the technique,

it's on to the corned beef and meat tins,

which both our steelworkers do successfully get into

with just the keys provided.

Go on, Stuart!

So, finally, how will they fare with the Fray Bentos tins?

This is useless!

HE LAUGHS

Even with the cheapest opener,

Stuart's got his tin open in no time,

unlike Andy.

Is that your first one?

-Yeah. It won't cut!

-HE LAUGHS

After almost three minutes of rather fruitless effort

to get into the pie,

Andy's had enough of the butterfly opener and the tin.

I'm giving up on that one.

-Dying of starvation over here(!)

-ANDY LAUGHS

Stuart hits the finishing line after just seven minutes.

Oh, I don't know...

But Andy's not ready to throw in the towel just yet,

and in fact, with the two more robust openers,

he too breezes through those final pie tins.

This one's best, up until now.

Finished!

-Well done!

-Congratulations!

I was confident before the competition, but I...

Obviously I won, but I didn't quite expect to win by those lengths.

I could have had four more tins.

It was the first Fray Bentos tin that did it.

I couldn't get in it. That first can opener...

I was getting ready to chuck it in the bin there and then.

It just didn't seem to cut and grip.

So, in our test, the cheapest type of tin opener, the butterfly one,

which cost us just 49p, proved inconsistent,

while the one Fray Bentos recommended did have

the best results.

Unfortunately, however, that means to guarantee success

when getting into your tin, you'll have had to fork out £9.99 -

quite an investment for a pie that can cost as little as £1,

and 20 times more than the basic kind of opener

many of us typically rely on.

The company did, however, also recommend one you can buy for £7.50,

and a tin opener we picked up for a couple of pounds

also did the trick -

all of which rather begs the question as to why Fray Bentos

can't just make their pies easier to open.

Because, while our experiment has been a bit of fun,

it is clear that, for some, what should be a simple kitchen task

can be a real and frustrating challenge.

As an older person or disabled, I think some of those tin openers -

in fact, most of them probably - you would maybe struggle with.

Well, knowing like how my mother is -

she's got arthritic hands and that -

she can't work any of those.

I had to buy her an electric one.

So, anybody with any slight disability

wouldn't work any of them.

They're just too much hard work.

The design of this pie tin may be iconic,

but, with so many people struggling to use it,

surely there must be room for improvement.

So, we've enlisted the help of creative designer

and packaging expert John Kirkby, from Sheffield Hallam University,

to see if he can come up with anything better.

John's recorded video diaries to keep track of his progress

as he attempts to redesign the tin.

I've been out and I've bought some of the pies,

and this is my first chance to have a good sit down

and have a look at the packaging.

To fully understand the problem,

John needs to put the tins through their usual paces,

which means having a go at opening them himself.

It definitely makes a difference with the types of can opener

that you use - the more robust one opens it much easier.

It's a real struggle with the smaller one.

And, once cooked, he has a much better idea of whether an entirely

different method of opening could be the answer.

A can with this size of diameter lid - it's difficult to get

a ring-pull system to work.

But we've modelled it up, anyway,

and we're going to send it to the 3-D printer.

John creates a replica of the tin to see if his solution

might be more user-friendly.

Let's take it away and have a look.

After a thorough analysis of the model, he's reached a conclusion,

and, perhaps surprisingly,

while John can see the current design does have its downside,

because it has to survive the cooking process,

he thinks it is probably the best solution currently available.

I think it has to be as it is, unfortunately.

I think it needs to be this robust and this strong to do the protection

and the long shelf life, as well as performing the cooking process.

I think it's possibly a necessary evil.

But it seems hope is on the horizon for those who'd say this necessary

evil is more like "Mission: Impossible".

When we contacted the owners of Fray Bentos, Baxters, about this,

the company told us it's been listening to consumer feedback

and working with its packaging manufacturer to improve

the "openability" of the can without compromising quality or integrity.

It reiterated what our packaging expert, John, had found,

saying that a ring puller, no, wouldn't be suitable

because the force required to lift the lid...

But the company told us it is investigating what improvements

can be made, such as enhancing the ridges on the lid,

so that the tin opener sits on it better,

and can more easily cut through the metal,

as well as working on the thickness of the can.

In the meantime, after we got in touch,

advice on the robust opener best suited to opening the can

has been added to its website.

But back in Worcester,

even though one of the sturdier models we've given Simon

does seem to be cutting the mustard...

OK, that does seem to be working.

There you go! That worked a lot better.

..the whole experience has rather dimmed his enthusiasm

for his once-favourite pies,

and the company putting details of its suggested tin opener

on its website isn't the breakthrough he was looking for.

If they've recommended a tin opener and they do work, then that's good,

but I think that recommendation should be on the tin.

But, no, I wouldn't buy any more pies.

I have to tell you, I come from a family

who don't throw anything away, and I mean anything.

My mother, bless her, could make a chicken last for a week, and every

leftover scrap of food was given a new lease of life another day.

But, as you know, times have changed,

and these days too many of our bins are bursting with perfectly good

food that's simply being chucked away.

And while one obvious solution is to once again

learn to love our leftovers,

there's a great deal of confusion around what

we should or should not reheat.

Well, one Rip-Off Britain viewer got in touch to say

she thought she knew where she stood on this,

until some supermarket labelling changed all of that,

and now she's thoroughly baffled.

So, she's asked us to get to the bottom of whether

it's her that's got it wrong or the supermarkets.

Now, although we don't like to waste food, we do throw away a lot of it.

Every year, an estimated seven million tonnes of food and drink

ends up in British bins, costing the average family around £470 a year,

and a whopping 4.5 million tonnes of that

is made up of uneaten leftovers.

Oh, my goodness, that is an awful lot of food

simply being chucked away,

but, you know, part of that, I think, is down to the fact that

with leftover food, sometimes we simply don't know whether

we should reheat it or not.

And, you know, I count myself as one of those people

who isn't always sure on this point.

On the one hand, reheating leftovers cuts down on waste and expenditure,

but knowing there are some foods that sometimes

are considered dangerous to reheat,

well, that can really put you off even trying.

So, we've cooked up our own foodie offerings,

made up of some of the country's most common leftovers.

Let's see how much the idea of eating reheated chicken,

cottage pie, rice,

fish and a sweet-and-sour takeaway appeals to you.

I'd be happy to eat reheated salmon.

I would not reheat the salmon.

The rice, I would reheat.

I'm always a bit funny about reheating rice.

I've heard that rice needs to be reheated to kill the bacteria.

Sweet-and-sour chicken,

if the chicken's only been cooked once and been cooled correctly,

I would consider reheating.

I wouldn't really with the chicken.

I would reheat the chicken if I wanted to eat it warm.

In the past, I have cooked some chicken wrong,

and gave us all violent sickness and diarrhoea.

Well, judging by this lot,

it seems that some of you are just as confused as I am

about what to reheat,

but I'm afraid there can be real dangers if we get it wrong.

Every year, around one million of us fall ill with food poisoning.

Most of us, of course, will recover quickly,

but, in a number of cases, the consequences

can be much more severe.

The chef and manager of a pub in east London have been jailed after

a woman died from eating a reheated Christmas Day dinner.

Although, thankfully, cases like that one are rare,

they're hard to forget when deliberating over which foods are

safe to reheat.

So, what are the rules to follow?

Well, that's a question that Rip-Off Britain viewer Monique Bochet,

up until recently an avid reheater, is very keen to get an answer to.

I am not someone that wastes food.

For one reason, I want to economise, because if you buy a pack of food,

even with, like, portions,

if you freeze it, you can have it the week after.

After years of cheerfully reheating her leftovers,

Monique was very surprised to find that the packaging on

some chicken breasts in her local Waitrose supermarket

stated they should not be reheated once they had cooled.

And it's worrying that they put on all the packaging "no reheating".

What confused me is that I have been doing it for so many years,

and no-one has been ill in my family due to my cooking,

therefore I couldn't understand why.

Monique then went back to her local M&S,

and found similar guidance on the back of its chicken breasts as well.

It was all enough to make her rethink buying chicken altogether.

I'm not using the supermarket chicken at the moment,

but I know a lot of my friends use their meat,

and therefore I'm just wondering if they are putting themselves at risk.

Now, chicken does have a particularly bad name

when it comes to food poisoning.

In 2014, the Food Standards Agency reported that poultry was

the food linked to the most cases of food poisoning,

typically around 244,000 a year.

Of course, not all of those cases are down to reheating food,

but, at the end of it all, how worried should we be?

And when it comes to those labels that Monique alerted us to,

should we allow labels like that to put us off ever reheating chicken?

Well, when we asked M&S and Waitrose about the labels that gave Monique

such cause for concern,

both retailers pointed out that this type of warning is standard practice

right across the supermarket sector.

M&S said it takes "great care and consideration" when deciding

what information to put on its packs,

and told us that it has no plans to change the label.

And Waitrose told us that food safety is its "top priority",

adding that, while space on the pack is limited,

it's "constantly reviewing" the way information is communicated

to customers,

and they went on to say there are many factors to keep in mind when

considering how to safely cook, cool and subsequently reheat food,

all of which have to be done carefully.

'So, to find out more about how best to do that,

'particularly when it comes to chicken,

'I've brought Monique to meet Dr Andreas Karatzas,

'a specialist in food microbiology at Reading University.

'He's been studying the effects of germs and bacteria in food

'for more than 20 years.'

Let's look at the bacteria that would normally be in chicken

that we should be worried about from the raw state.

The raw chicken, the main bacteria that you would be worried about are

campylobacter and salmonella.

However, this would be completely destroyed

if you cook the chicken well,

so normally a cooked chicken wouldn't have any salmonella

or any campylobacter.

However, when you cook the chicken, you don't kill all bacteria.

So, what percentage would be killed off?

I would say most of the bacteria would be killed, about 99.999,

but there would be a few bacteria that are left.

According to a previous experiment carried out by Andreas,

reheating chicken doesn't kill those few remaining bacteria,

and if they get a chance to multiply, they can produce toxins

that cause vomiting and diarrhoea.

Now, the danger zone for this growth is between 5 and 63 degrees.

So, especially if you keep the chicken in that temperature,

these bacteria divide very, very rapidly,

and in a few hours they will start producing toxins.

Whoa.

And then, even if you kill the bacteria afterwards,

the toxins will remain there and they will give you food poisoning.

Well, that probably explains why the supermarkets are so quick to warn us

off reheating altogether,

but rest assured, there is a way to reduce that bacterial growth,

and that's to limit the time that food spends

between 5 and 63 degrees, especially as it cools,

and warming food up to anything lower than 75 degrees

is an absolute no-no.

So, Andreas isn't saying Monique should not reheat

her beloved chicken breasts,

and, to give her the confidence to do it,

he's giving her some simple tips to follow,

to safeguard against food poisoning, by reheating some chicken.

How long are you going to cook them for?

-I'm going to cook them at different times...

-Oh, yeah?

..and then we're just going to see the internal temperature

-in each one of them.

-OK.

-OK?

Andreas reheats four previously-cooked chicken breasts

in oil and a medium heat,

and, after three minutes, takes the first one out to check whether it's

reached the right internal temperature.

To avoid food poisoning, it should be above 75 degrees.

And, as you can see, the temperature is 43 degrees down here.

-You can...

-That's... That's too low.

So, you are already... This is in the danger zone.

It's a slightly different story at six minutes,

but still not quite warm enough.

We've reached 63 degrees, but it's not steaming hot inside,

so in a few minutes the temperature will start going down,

and then it will get below 63 degrees

and the microorganisms can start growing.

At nine minutes, the temperature continues to rise to 66 degrees.

Then, a further three minutes later,

the last chicken breast has reheated to 96 degrees -

well within safe limits, if only doing it once.

You only do this once, and that's it?

Yes, exactly. You reheat it only once.

Now, if you reheat that back, if you let it cool down...

again, you're getting to that danger zone.

It might be a few hours in that danger zone or a few minutes -

the microorganisms will grow.

All this tallies with the guidance issued by the Food Standards Agency.

It says it's useful to think of reheating as cooking food again,

rather than just warming it up.

To ensure that either cooked or reheated food is safe to eat,

we should check that it's steaming hot all the way through,

and the FSA also recommends that you should only reheat food once.

But, of course, chicken isn't the only food many of us

might have concerns about reheating,

so, to tackle some of the others,

I've enlisted the help of cookery teacher Kumud Gandhi.

She's promised to unlock safety and taste tips that won't just

save you money, but reduce food waste as well,

and that's a win-win in my book,

and she's kicking off with advice on how to best store the food that

you've cooked and don't want to throw away.

Just remind me of the basic rules.

It's really important that you don't put hot food in the fridge.

And why is that?

Essentially, you are increasing the temperature in the fridge,

which means, then, you can actually raise the temperature,

but anywhere between five and eight degrees,

in which case, then, you are incubating germs and bacteria.

So that's really important?

Yes.

'So, before even thinking about reheating,

'it's essential you cool down the food correctly to minimise the risk

'of those bacterial spores multiplying.

'To make all of this a bit clearer, Kumud's going to run through

'how to safely reheat some of the everyday foods you

'may have left over in your fridge at home, starting with rice.'

What's your theory about the preparation of rice

and the subsequent re-cooking?

It's the cooling down of the rice once it's been cooked that's

more important to whether you can reheat it,

and so, once you've cooked it,

transfer it on to a non-metallic plate,

preferably with open sides,

so that the air can get through and cool it down quickly.

I will place a fork in it and keep fluffing it,

so that the air pockets are released,

and so that it cools down, and I will spread it out on to a plate.

Mm-hmm.

'Rice should be cooled within an hour of cooking,

'then covered and chilled in the fridge and used within a day.

'To reheat, put the rice into a bowl that you can put into the microwave.

'with a few drops of water. and heat it until it's steaming,

'stirring it halfway through.

'It can also be reheated in the oven,

'again with a little bit of water,

'but, whatever your method,

'the key is that it must be absolutely steaming hot,

'and as with the chicken, the advice is to reheat it only once.'

Next, it's ready meals,

which have generally already been cooked once

before they're packaged up,

so we're effectively reheating them the first time we put them into the

microwave or oven,

and there are so many variables with the contents of instant meals

that it's impossible to create one-size-fits-all advice,

so, in this case, it's safest to follow the instructions on the pack

and if the label says not to reheat, then don't do it.

But there is another dish on the menu that, with the right treatment,

could save you on wastage -

a leftover takeaway.

Now, this is sweet-and-sour, so what's your advice about this?

If you're reheating from a takeaway,

then you would want to heat it up thoroughly,

and that can be difficult with something like a sweet-and-sour,

because in order to get the heat all the way through to the centre

of the chicken, it's going to compromise the rest of the texture.

And how do you do that?

So, you would put it in a saucepan,

and heat it in a saucepan with a lid.

And would that work?

That would work, but you would need to make some adjustments to it.

Yeah, cos you're going to lose a lot of the sauce if you do that,

-aren't you?

-Correct. Indeed.

And especially because this is a sweet-and-sour dish,

so the sugar will begin to caramelise and will burn quickly.

Now, to avoid that and help get the dish back up to a safe temperature,

Kumud adds water to the sauce, before cooking with the lid on,

until it's piping hot throughout.

You can check that it's reached 75 degrees with a probe thermometer.

You should only do this with leftover dishes

that have been cooled quickly, and then eat them within two days.

As for the other leftover we took to the street earlier,

Kumud would apply the same key principles to reheating fish.

She'd only do it, though, once,

until it was piping hot and steaming throughout,

and she'd do it in the oven, with the fish wrapped in foil

or covered in the microwave with a few drops of water.

So, provided you do it right,

it's reassuring to know that chicken, rice,

fish and takeaways can be reheated carefully after all,

even if the packaging suggests otherwise,

and if in doubt, the key messages that I'll certainly be taking

from this are that you should usually only reheat something once,

and make sure that the food itself is a temperature of

75 degrees Celsius, outside the danger zone.

That's advice that Monique will be following as well,

and she's thrilled that she won't have to abandon

the reheating habits of a lifetime.

I have always done it.

My grandparents used to do it,

my parents did it,

and I follow on.

There is no reason why we can't reheat food at all.

Well, I'm afraid that's almost it from us for today,

but I do have to say, no matter how many times we look at

labels on packaging on this programme,

there's always something new to reveal,

and thankfully new tips to pick up as well.

You know, I think I might even learn to love my leftovers from now on.

Well, maybe!

-I think the jury's out.

-It depends on the state of it.

And I'll be hoping that the food I buy which says it's from a farm

is in fact from a real one,

and certainly not that dodgy-sounding Somerville Farm.

Mind you...

No. No, probably better not.

No, in all seriousness,

if you do care, as we all should, where your food comes from,

it really is worth spending that extra few seconds

taking a closer look at the food label to find out

if what you're buying is what you think it seems to be.

And remember, if you've battled with packaging,

or you've been bamboozled by cooking instructions,

do get in touch with our team.

They're very keen to hear about any of your consumer experiences,

not just about food,

because they look into which ones we should investigate on the various

programmes we're making in future months.

But, for now, may I thank you very much indeed for your company,

and from all of us on the team, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

-Goodbye.