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Michel’s Patisserie, the country-wide bakery chain store, is in trouble after it has been exposed for selling their baked goods and edible decorations after the recommended use-by date.

As reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, a collection of memos from the store’s parent company, Retail Food Group (RFG), revealed that staff at the patisserie had been instructed to disregard expiry dates and manually extend the shelf-life of their products for as long as six months.

Staff were informed, in one specific memo, that edible plaques with an expiry date of 15 January 2019 should still remain on the shelves until 15 July 2019.

“If you receive coloured plaques from this batch number that still denotes the original January expiry date, please disregard this and ensure staff are aware of the new expiry date,” the memo says.

Stale Choocolate Cakes

Chocolate cakes and birthday cakes were also the topic of other memo’s, where the teams were requested to extend the use-by date on these items by three months.

Staff were told to extend the expiry date of various scrolls by two months. Wow, this would make some extremely stale scrolls.

RFG has been referred to the food authorities for investigation.

According to the food authorities, it is illegal for a shop to sell a product after the use-by date has been reached. Retailers are permitted to sell foods beyond their best-before date but consumers need to be aware that food may be of an inferior quality.

Challenges

RFG said in a statement:

“RFG takes its food standard obligations extremely seriously and any potential breach of such standards would be investigated thoroughly alongside our suppliers.”

“RFG acknowledges that there have been challenges in the Michel’s network and is actively working to improve these,” it said.

Poor Quality Products

It has been reported that former Michel’s franchisee, Wayne Hong, had closed his store last year had lodged many complaints to RFG about the poor quality of products.

He said cakes often arrived at stores damaged, chocolate ganache cakes were cracked and the taste of some cakes was bad. “It was really dodgy,” he said.

Another franchisee said:
“RFG could try to do right by their franchisees and reduce the cost of goods to entice us to purchase stock nearing its expiration date, but instead they don’t discount the product and force us to sell out-of-date stock. We cannot return the products, as the distributor refuses to issue a credit given the shelf-life extension,” the franchisee said.

The franchisee who leaked the memos said: “Ultimately we just want to be able to operate our business with pride in our product and our brand, and be able to make a comfortable living for the hard work we do week in and week out. But we have no faith or loyalty to RFG, it has been burnt out of us, so we are happy to help in any way to have more of their immoral conduct come to light.”

What has been your experiences with Michel’s Patisserie? Tell us in the comments below.

  • I brought a cake from a store with was supposed to have been baked on that day, it had mould on it on the bottom so you couldn’t see it until you cut it and tipped the cake slice on the side exposing the bottom! Not happy

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  • You expect to get what you pay for… This is just terrible, there is more at risk than brand reputation.

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  • Wow that’s terrible!

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  • sure made me think

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  • This is disgusting. I’m so glad the franchisees have stood up for themselves after trying to take it further internally

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  • I haven’t been there in ages because they were pretty gross. Now I know why. I actually thought they’d all gone out of business because all the ones around here all shut down.

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  • I got my birthday cake there and it was horrible, thought I was just unlucky but maybe not. Yuck I don’t think I will be going there anytime soon

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  • eww this is so gross, glad they are being investigated

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  • Oh my. This is really bad.

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  • Oh my goodness, this is not pretty. I never liked Michel’s Patisserie much.
    I didn’t know retailers are permitted to sell foods beyond their best-before date but consumers need to be aware that food may be of an inferior quality, thought they were not allowed.


    • I should tell my friend, she’s a Michel’s Patisserie lover.

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  • Oh wow this is disgusting that’s what they are selling people

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  • This has definitely tarnished the brand for me. Horrible way to run a business. Especially when their customers are mainly there to celebrate special occasions with their cakes etc
    I won’t be buying from them anymore.

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  • The owner of the company is giving the franchisees a very bad reputation. I can’t imagine the owner giving any compensation either, To think that they also sell wedding cakes…..or used to.

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  • I’ve only had drinks there – they were ok.


    • I agree – drinks were ok and service was friendly.

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  • I’ve not really tried any of their food personally but have had drinks which were yummy.

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  • What a disgrace I feel sorry for the franchisees trying to deal with this.

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  • No wonder their food often tastes not fantastic.

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  • Ew just nasty! You would think these products would be so super stale bring so far out of date. Dirty business tactics just to make a dollar

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  • Our local ones closed down!

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  • I don’t think l would be interested in shopping there in the future!

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