Episode 1 Rip Off Britain

We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling ripped off

and you contacted us in your thousands.

You've told us about the companies you think get it wrong

and the customer service that simply isn't up to scratch.

If I walk in somewhere and they treat me badly then I walk

and I will never go in again.

You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money

and investigate the extra charges that you say are unfair.

You've paid for a service

and you expect it to be the service that you've paid for.

And when you've lost out, but no-one else is to blame, you've come

to us to stop others from falling into the same trap.

As a customer you've got to be more savvy in terms of what you're

buying and make sure that it's something that you want or need

and not something that they're trying to trick you into getting.

So whether it's a blatant rip off or a genuine mistake, we're

here to find out why you're out of pocket and what you can do about it.

Your stories, your money. This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello. We're looking into all things to do with food.

And while sometimes it can be a bit tricky keeping across everything

when we're eating at home, I think most of us would agree that

things become a lot more complicated when we're eating out.

Because of course that is when we're putting our trust

and confidence into the hands of other people.

The truth is that some of the places we go to can leave us

feeling really disappointed.

Either because what they're serving isn't quite what we'd assumed,

or indeed hoped for,

and we have some surprising examples of that coming up.

Or perhaps even because they're struggling with the absolute basics.

In other words keeping themselves and their surroundings clean.

So, today we're going to be finding out exactly what's being done

to make sure that the standards of hygiene where we eat are up to scratch.

Coming up, we've done our own tests into restaurant cleanliness.

So in which high street favourite did

we find something very unpleasant indeed?

There's faecal contamination either of the water that made

the ice or the ice itself.

And so it increases the risk of getting sick from consuming this ice.

And the food outlets not just flouting the law

but putting lives at risk.

Do you have the allergy information written anywhere that I can look at?

Whenever you go into a restaurant or takeaway,

you might have seen a bright green sticker, about so long by

so deep, displayed either on the door or the window,

making it very clear what the food hygiene rating

is of the place in which you plan to eat.

In other words it's a very helpful steer on

whether the standards inside are really up to scratch.

Or at least it should be.

But in fact, though you might have assumed otherwise,

restaurants are not obliged to display their rating.

So any place that's scored particularly badly doesn't

have to tell you about it.

Even though, chances are, you certainly would want to know.

So, short of actually poking your head into the kitchen,

how can you tell if a restaurant is as clean as a whistle?

Or no such thing.

With stickers to show if you're eating somewhere clean and safe,

the food hygiene rating scheme was launched in most of the UK in 2010.

Although Scotland already had something similar.

The idea is that any establishment that serves or provides

food to the general public should be inspected

and then given a rating depending on how clean their premises are.

So, for instance, if you get a five, which is the top rating,

that means that you are very good.

If you get zero, well, that indicates

that your establishment is in need of urgent attention.

But what exactly do these ratings mean?

Well, someone who knows the answer to that is John Thornhill.

His restaurant in central London has a rating of five.

So, he must be doing something right.

So how much notice did you get before the inspectors arrived?

They don't give you any warning. I think that's absolutely right.

In the end the only way to try and achieve consistency, or at least to

measure consistency, is to go when people don't necessarily expect it.

Restaurants are inspected by local authority environmental

health officers, who are checking for a number of things.

How hygienically the food is handled.

In other words the way it's prepared, cooked, reheated,

cooled and stored.

And they'll look at the condition and structure of the building.

It's cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation and other facilities.

What are the extra problems that you've got,

-because the food looks stunning..

-Thank you.

-..and it's colourful and wonderful.

But it is all out on show.

This is tuna. Good example, can only be out for 30 minutes.

Because obviously being fish it will go off quite quickly.

Whereas if we look at something like ham that can be for a longer period of time.

So we have a system in the back here which controls every dish,

knows when it was sent up,

knows how long it can be out for and alerts the staff when we need to

send it down if everything hasn't been sold at that point.

-How proud are you that you got a five rating?

-Very proud.

Cos if I was walking past the window here,

and seeing there's food on display,

I'd think it looked visually very appetising but I would

want to know that it was going to be equally good in the consumption.

But unfortunately not all restaurants are as thorough

as this one.

Our team has uncovered some pretty shocking statistics concerning

food hygiene at establishments the length and breadth of the country.

At the time we checked there were 14,251 food outlets scoring

a rating of just two or below.

That's nearly 9% of all the premises inspected.

Worse still, 973 of these scored zero on the rating scale,

which means they need urgent improvement.

But finding out a restaurant's score isn't always that straightforward.

I took a walk along a busy street in London's Soho,

with no less than 34 restaurants.

But only nine of them are displaying their food hygiene rating.

And that's because by law they don't

have to put it in a prominent position.

In fact, only in Wales would they be obliged to

display their rating at all.

So I'm meeting Catriona Stewart who's

head of the scheme for the Food Standards Agency, to find out why

such vitally important information is not made obvious to customers.

Why should it not be made a legal requirement that they put

that rating in a very prominent position

so that you can see what it is before you go into a restaurant?

Well, actually in Wales at the moment it is already

a requirement of law that businesses must put their rating sticker,

it's a very distinctive green and black sticker.

And they must put that in the window.

But not in England.

In England, the Food Standards Agency, we do favour that.

And what we're doing at the moment is putting together

the evidence to support the case for that.

Because it requires new legislation and we need to be able to show

that it doesn't have an additional burden on food businesses.

And we'll be putting that case to the government

so the government can consider that case and make a decision.

So, let's hope that it does soon become law that every food

establishment and outlet really has to prominently display that

hygiene rating.

It would give us all a lot more confidence, wouldn't it?

In the meantime, if you're planning to eat out anywhere in the UK,

you can check the outlet rating on the FSA website.

But amongst those scoring zero in recent inspections are

branches of some very big names indeed.

So, later in the programme, we'll be seeing whether or not they've

since cleaned up their act.

We did our own hygiene tests and you'll be shocked by what we found.

Every year people in Britain spend nearly 30 billion

pounds on takeaways.

But, for anyone with a serious food allergy, not being able to know

exactly what's in your favourite curry or pizza could be lethal.

Which is why scenes like this simply shouldn't happen.

Do you have the allergy information written anywhere that I can look at?

Do you have any allergy information anywhere so that I can have a look?

Since December 2014 there's been a law in place to make sure

that anyone who needs to avoid certain ingredients,

such as nuts or dairy products, in case

they trigger a dangerous allergic reaction,

can get the crucial information they need about what is safe to eat.

That means any business serving food,

from big chains to burger vans, must be able to tell customers

what allergens are present in each and every dish they serve.

Steven Obertelli knows only too well why it's

so important for all food outlets to take this seriously.

He has a severe allergy to peanuts

so he relies on being able to get the right information

about the food on offer before he can eat out or get a takeaway.

At times you do feel as though people are looking at you as

if you're being fussy and it's kind of a nonsensical reason to ask.

And it's not, it's because I'm trying to make sure that I can

enjoy the food and walk out the restaurant not having a reaction.

Chicken tikka masala, does that have any nuts in it at all?

Back in 2013, before the new laws came in, Steven was given the

wrong information when he ordered a curry from an Indian takeaway.

I rang up, ordered the food as normal, to which

when I order the food and then say, "Can you make sure it's no nuts?"

99% of the time the guy at the other end would say,

"Oh, is it Steve ringing again?"

Now that, it makes you feel comfortable.

But soon after starting to eat his curry

he realised something was horribly wrong.

Within two mouthfuls of the chicken tikka masala

I knew that there was nuts in there.

Steven's lips immediately began to swell

and he was struggling to breathe before being admitted to hospital.

If I hadn't have administered my Epipen

and took the action I had I wouldn't be here today.

So what had gone wrong?

Well, it turns out that the curry house was unaware that a new

bought in ingredient contained ground peanuts.

But while the curry house admitted fault and paid compensation

to Steven, he's painfully aware of what could have happened.

12 years ago his sister Kate died after a severe reaction to a curry.

It too contained peanuts

and she shared the same allergy as her brother.

So you can see why Steven and Kate's mother Sue thinks it's

so vital that everyone serving food gets this right.

It needs to be regulated more to make sure that these restaurants

and takeaways, any food establishment in fact,

know what they're doing, what they're serving to people.

And that they do have this information to hand to any

customers. If they don't make the products themselves,

that they're serving, they need to get a full list of ingredients.

Of course, that's what the law now says.

But worryingly, when the Royal Society for Public Health paid random visits

to 65 different takeaways in and around London,

they found that 70% were not complying with the new rules.

We found incredibly low levels of compliance in the takeaway

sector as a whole.

We found around two thirds weren't providing

the information in the way that they needed to be providing it.

Four out of five had no sort of system in place to make

sure that they were giving consistent information to

customers, which is quite shocking.

And some of the worst offenders in the survey were Indian restaurants,

now generally accepted as Britain's favourite type of takeaway.

But also where Steven

and his sister had come across such dangerous allergens in their food.

So we decided to do some tests of our own at the Indian

restaurants not far from the Rip-Off Britain office on Manchester's

famous Curry Mile.

We went to 15 curry houses at random to see if they could tell us

at random if any of the 14 main allergens were in their food.

Whether they put details on a written list on the menu,

or simply give it verbally when asked,

staff must now be able to provide that information.

Trouble is, as you'll see, that's not always happening.

Does the chicken korma contain peanuts?

Does it contain peanuts?

Do you have a list of any of the...

Of the 15 we visited, 12 were either pretty vague about what

their food contained or appeared to have no idea at all.

Just three were able to supply us

with the full information that the law says they should.

Do you have a list of what allergens...

OK, it's a long list.

It goes on and on.

Thanks.

Many of the takeaways we visited did state on their menus...

But under the new rules this simply doesn't go far enough.

They're legally required to say exactly what

allergens are in which dishes.

Instead, this is a typical example of what we found.

Which one's got nuts in then? Cos I just...

So if I fancied a korma?

So has it got peanuts in it?

This story took on an even greater urgency in May 2016 after

Yorkshire restaurateur Mohammed Zaman was found

guilty of the manslaughter of Paul Wilson, who was served chicken tikka

masala containing peanuts, despite making clear he had an allergy.

So until the new laws are fully enforced our findings will do

nothing to ease the fears of countless people

affected by food allergies, including the Obertelli family,

that whenever they eat out they may be dicing with death.

I think it's pathetic that any takeaway or restaurant or

food establishment that doesn't comply with the new legislation.

Why would you want to have the potential

fatality of a customer hanging over your head?

Next, something that's a real bugbear for a lot of you.

Now we know from all the e-mails

and letters we get about this just how fed up

some of you are with the way that food packaging sometimes

disguises how little of the actual product might be tucked away inside.

Some of the cereals you buy are three quarters full.

Crisp bags, they're half full. Sweet packets are half full.

I've had it with like cakes.

You know, they're in a massive box and there's polystyrene in it

And then when you get to the cake there's hardly anything there.

Normally when you buy a large bag of potato chips you will find

that by the time you've opened them up

and the air's come out the bag is that full, not that full.

Well, a number of you have written to us

about exactly this subject after being

disappointed by the contents of the packaging you've bought,

Wendy Rollin from Carmarthenshire for one.

She has Coeliac Disease,

an autoimmune disease affecting the digestive system.

There's not a lot of choice

when it comes to coeliacs for breakfast cereals.

It's mainly cornflakes.

When I saw the box of Tesco Special Flakes I thought, mm,

not a bad price, I'll give them a go.

I opened the box and I thought, oh, where's the inner bag.

And I peered in and I thought oh, that's a bit low.

So, I pulled it out and I put it alongside like that and I thought,

well, surely they could have filled the box up with more cereal.

Because I thought I'd got a box full of cereal.

Now, of course manufacturers are not breaking any

rules by selling their products in oversized packaging.

And Wendy's cornflakes are by no means the only,

or indeed the worst, offender.

So I met up with author

and shopping psychologist Phillip Adcock to get his take

on a few other products that contain a little less than meets the eye.

When I look at something like this, I think to myself,

I mean look at that.

It's just about a third full.

It's ridiculous, I mean why would people pick up a bag of them?

Psychologically we'll always go for the bigger packet.

And, dare I say, children definitely like the bigger packet cos

they think there's more in it.

So I'm going to let you open the packet cos as I get older

I can't open any packet at all.

So we're going to see how many more in fact we could get in.

So that holds five to start with.

Five, only five. Gosh.

Shall I count them in?

Six, seven,

eight, nine,

ten, eleven, twelve.

Thirteen, I'm not going to put it up too high.

-Fourteen, I think it would take

-fifteen. Fifteen would be about the maximum.

Fifteen. And that would still stack on the shelf.

Now that is terrible, isn't it?

So you could quite easily fit in three times as many mini

moons in this packet as Tesco currently puts in.

I would feel hoodwinked about this packaging.

So what is the answer to that in terms of the manufacturer?

It's who can be good and shrink their pack.

Cos as soon as one shrinks the pack theirs

is smaller than everybody else's.

And so suddenly it doesn't look as good value.

Let's try another and this one, I must say, I do find extraordinary.

So it says here five lunchtime loaves.

I would expect that it would be right up to the top.

Instead it looked like they'd missed one out.

So, generally speaking,

is the product inside the bag getting smaller?

Over the years the supermarkets have negotiated harder

and harder to get us better prices. That's actually a good thing.

It gets to the stage where the brands that supply them

can't make it for the money.

So they have to, what they call, value engineer the products.

Basically give less in the pack.

And here's another product.

It's a favourite of my grandchildren for sure, popcorn.

So not quite half.

That's less than half full.

See if I open that and go to stick my hand in it, which I would,

I'd sort of think, oh, who's been eating the remainder?

It looks like somebody's had half the bag, doesn't it?

Back in Wales, Wendy is keen to gauge public opinion on the matter.

Now, she's taken her half empty cereal packet to Carmarthen to ask

shoppers if they feel short-changed by the oversized packaging.

If you were buying this packet of cereal where would you expect

the contents to come up to?

-You think a bit higher?

-Yes, I'd say probably about at least up to there.

If I show you that that's actually where it comes up to what

would you say, I wonder?

Not good. It is misleading.

Oh, my gosh, that is, wow. That is low, isn't it?

I think that's a little bit unfair to present something in a box

that's so much too big for it.

Well, it's a rip off, isn't it?

Because it's more or less half the size.

Well, Wendy didn't really find many people who disagreed with her.

But when we asked Tesco about its packaging of this product,

and indeed about those Mini Moon cheeses I saw,

the company didn't want to comment.

We also contacted Soreen, the maker of those lunchbox loaves,

who told us that after getting similar feedback from its own

customers it's now introduced a new pack, reducing the packaging by 30%.

And Asda, which sells the popcorn, explained that corn can

expand to different sizes and air is required to protect the popped corn.

But the production line will detect and discard...

But as we dash around the supermarkets falling

foul of oversized packaging, Phillip suggests that we start

thinking differently about the things we choose to buy.

First thing I would do is I would do start to try and ignore,

this is going to sound strange, the price.

Pay attention to the little number in the corner which is

the pence per gram, pence per litre. Compare those.

And that's the second point, don't just say a pound or a kilo,

that's about right.

Look to either side, compare.

Thirdly take your glasses.

Remember the glasses, I agree with that.

Earlier in the programme we looked at the food hygiene ratings

that you should be able to spot on the doors or windows of most

restaurants and takeaways.

And while you might hope that only a handful of places would get

the lowest possible score, which is a zero,

there are more than you would think.

Indeed, the odd branch of some very big names are among them.

You'd expect any establishment that gets a damning zero hygiene

rating to do all it can to immediately put things right.

But to find out for sure we put it to the test.

Helping us out was medical microbiologist

Dr Margarita Gomez Escalada from Leeds Beckett University.

She's an expert in the bacteria that lurk in restaurants

and knows how crucial it is for premises to tackle them.

The food can be utilised by microorganisms to grow.

And obviously microorganisms can potentially cause disease.

What they can cause varies hugely.

It can go from an upset stomach and diarrhoea to extreme cases.

The likes of salmonella has been reported to cause death.

All the more reason for anywhere with a low hygiene score to

address their issues right away.

So we carried out some checks of our own at places which had

recently rated zero in their official inspection to get

a snapshot of whether standards had improved.

And we chose branches of some of the best known names in the country

who you'd imagine might have the resources to raise their game.

So we went to this Costa in Loughborough, Chicken Cottage

in Hampstead, this Caffe Nero in Bath, the Wimpy in Basildon

and finally this KFC in Birmingham.

At each site we took swabs from up to four of the key publicly

accessible parts of the restaurant.

We also asked for some ice or water in a takeaway cup

and we sent all the samples to be analysed in Dr Gomez Escalada's lab.

We tested tabletops, trays, self-service areas

and the hand plates in the bathroom.

And the reason we tested them is what someone would be exposed to.

So once the scientists had finished their tests how did each

place scrub up?

Well, in our tests the Costa Coffee in Loughborough

and the Wimpy in Basildon got a clean bill of health.

And both have since been officially reinspected.

The Costa is now rating the maximum five and the Wimpy a four.

This Finchley Road branch of Chicken Cottage also did well in our test.

We sampled the tray, the table and the doorplate.

And we found the levels of hygiene at that

establishment are acceptable.

But, just weeks later, it received another hygiene

rating of zero following an inspection in March.

The premises are officially classed as high priority

and will be resinpsected every six months.

The branch of Chicken Cottage told us that the inspection had taken

place while remedial and emergency works were being carried out.

But that these are now complete.

The restaurant said it looks forward to...

Meanwhile, back with our results,

and Caffe Nero on the high street in Bath wasn't totally squeaky clean.

One thing that struck me when I was actually transferring

the bacteria on to the plate is that the swabs were actually very dirty.

And if I show you an example.

This is the self-service area.

And this is the swab, and if you can see the swab is actually dirty.

There was no evidence of dangerous bacteria

but there were significant levels of other microorganisms.

In the self-service area, which is this plate,

that's more than 500 colonies there.

Hard to estimate actually, there's so many.

None of that should present any risk

but Dr Gomez Escalada wasn't especially impressed.

Because the level of bacteria are so high indicates that the

levels of hygiene are not particularly great.

When we put these findings to Caffe Nero it told us that the

issues that led to its zero rating were...

By bringing forward a planned refurbishment they've already

been addressed.

And it pointed out that since our visit the branch has been

reinspected and awarded the maximum rating of five.

That leaves just this KFC in Birmingham's Martineau Place.

Our tests on their tabletop, door plate

and self-service areas all came back clear.

But the cup of ice that staff gave us was a different story.

Our tests turned up what scientists call faecal coliforms,

a kind of bacteria which, I'm afraid, are found in faeces.

We found high levels of bacteria in the ice sample we got.

The presence of faecal coliforms suggests that there's faecal

contamination.

And so it increases the risk of getting sick from consuming

this ice.

When we spoke to KFC it told us that a reinspection

after our testing rerated the restaurant with...

And a further inspection after this report first went out again

gave the restaurant the top score.

KFC went on to say it takes...

..with 97% of its restaurants achieving a score of four or above.

But even one with a zero rating was...

So it worked with a specialist third party consultant to get

standards back up.

As for our findings it said, while pleased to see

from the tests that the restaurant was very clean, it was...

It then undertook an urgent retraining

programme on standards for...

KFC went on to say that it's right behind the food hygiene

rating scheme which it says the public can trust.

We also contacted the Food Standards Agency which confirmed that

businesses given ratings of zero or one must make urgent or major

improvements.

And, if it's considered that there's an imminent risk to health,

part or all of the business may be closed down.

But if you're eating out and aren't sure if a place is up to scratch,

well, perhaps it's safest to simply use your eyes and your nose.

If it doesn't look good then really do

they actually care about their customers?

What's it like behind the scenes?

Go in the toilets, see what it looks like in there.

If they can't get that right I'm sure

they won't have got the kitchen right.

If you have a story that you'd like us to investigate then do

get in touch with us via our Facebook page, BBC Rip Off Britain.

Our website is bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain

Or you can e-mail us at...

Or indeed if you want to send us a letter then our address is...

Well, that's almost it from us for today.

But I don't know about you guys,

but I have to say I was absolutely shocked to see just quite how

many restaurants and cafes scored that zero rating for cleanliness and hygiene.

-Scary.

-It is, isn't it?

And, while of course you can probably see why they're not going to want

to be shouting that result from the rooftops, it's certainly

information that I would want to know before venturing inside.

I agree with you, Angela, it does seem ridiculous that such

vital information doesn't have to be more clearly displayed.

But, whether it's the quality of the establishment or

the quality of what you're actually eating,

let us know if things don't pass the muster the next time you eat out.

And it could be your story we'll be looking at on the future programmes.

But in the meantime thanks for joining us today and,

wherever you're having your next meal,

we hope it's a good one, a safe one and a clean one.

-True.

-So from all of us, goodbye.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.