Furious shoppers accuse supermarkets of ‘ruining Christmas’ after being delivered rotten turkeys
Furious Christmas shoppers have accused Britain’s biggest supermarkets of ruining Christmas after turkeys smelled and became discolored during delivery.
Shoppers posted pictures of seared turkeys, complaining about the smell and criticizing supermarket giants for not sourcing healthy meat.
“Just opened the turkey I ordered and it has MOLD on it and smells awful, rotten,” said a Tesco customer, alongside a picture of a stinky-looking yellow turkey.
“Thank you for ruining Christmas, I have no support so all we have is stuffed animals and pigs in blankets unless they’re covered too. Never again. Oh my god the smell is everywhere, I need candles urgently,” she added.
Another shopper, who paid around £32 at Sainsbury’s for a 1.8kg turkey, said: “The turkey opened on Christmas morning tastes different!
“By 26/12 the smell was so bad! £31 and had to throw it away!”
Another Sainsbury’s customer said on Thursday that turkey should be removed from the Christmas menu.
“No turkey for us today!” He shared on X.
“I bought it on Saturday, it has been in the fridge ever since. The pictures do not reflect how bad it smelled after cutting into the packaging. Very disappointed Sainsbury’s.”
A customer accused Sainsbury’s Longwater Store in Norwich of selling him a “rotten turkey” which he “opened to the smell of on Christmas morning”.
She added: “I’m definitely going to ‘taste the difference’ with this one!!!!”
Another shopper, who opted for beef, said: “Thank you @LidlGB our beef is rotten for Christmas day. Not good.”
Other customers complained that their meat was out of date before Christmas Day arrived, or even long before it was purchased.
“I bought these turkeys 10/12. They are massively outsold,” said one Tesco shopper, alongside pictures of expired turkeys in May and June 2025. “The Ealing Broadway store should be fined for food hygiene failures. I didn’t notice. I don’t expect the turkeys on sale in December to be past their sell by date.”
Another Tesco customer, who placed an order on 23 December, soon learned that the best-by date for her unsmoked bone-in gammon joint was 24 December.
“@Tesco collected the order on 23rd December. I just realized it’s 24th December and it stinks! Cooking this for Christmas dinner!! Disgusting,” the customer wrote. Tesco asked him to direct message more details about the incident.
A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s said: “We will be contacting those customers who received a turkey that did not meet our usual high standards to tell them how sorry we are about this experience and reassure them that we are investigating how this could have happened.”
Independent It contacted Tesco and Lidl for comment.
