Burgess Excel - Maggots!

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NatalieMT

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I bought a bag of Excel Blackcurrant and Oregano nuggets 2kg size about 10 days ago, had been storing the bag in the house and opened it today only to find the bag crawling with maggots. The nuggets had gone really crumbly and dusty, it was pretty disgusting. :)>>> The bag was fully intact until I opened it, I inspected it for holes or rips etc so there is no way anything has got in since it was packaged.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up really. I've written down the best before (which was 03.02.12 for anyone interested) and the other batch codes and fully intend to contact Excel tomorrow.

I found a few similar topics on here and on other forums but a couple of them were 1-2 years old. Anyone else had a problem recently?
 
Urgh - heads off to check bag bought yesterday which is unopened...BBE 5/10/12 :...
Thanks for alerting us to this, Burgess will be very generously compensating you I hope :)
 
ooh yuk, some one on here recently found maggots in a bag of hay-thanks for the warning, hope you get lots of free samples from excel x
 
ooh yuck, some one on here recently found maggots in a bag of hay-thanks for the warning, hope you get lots of free samples from excel x
 
ooh yuck, some one on here recently found maggots in a bag of hay-thanks for the warning, hope you get lots of free samples from excel x
 
Guinea pig slave said:
Urgh - heads off to check bag bought yesterday which is unopened...BBE 5/10/12 :...
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You'll probably be fine! I bought a couple more bags of Excel today, opened them both promptly and transferred the food into sealed plastic tubs and there was nothing nasty in there.

I do firmly believe Excel is great food for the piggies and provides everything they need I just don't want any wriggly extras! :o
 
I had this problem with Wagg mouse food a few weeks ago, i'd opened the new bag of food in the dark popped my hand in, fed the mice. Then in the morning i found maggots all over the room and loads of them in the mouse food! I promptly threw it out and haven't stopped washing my hands since lol
 
Never had that problem but Burgess are HUGE on customer service and they will be affronted this has happened, as somebody else said expect them to be quite generous!
 
piggie-power said:
I had this problem with Wagg mouse food a few weeks ago, i'd opened the new bag of food in the dark popped my hand in, fed the mice. Then in the morning i found maggots all over the room and loads of them in the mouse food! I promptly threw it out and haven't stopped washing my hands since lol
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They looked like seeds initially like all curled up and then I noticed they were moving! Tiny things sort of yellow/white with a slight green tinge. Luckily I didn't touch any of them!

Sounds like Wiebke got a dodgy bag as I did, it seems to be a more prominent problem with the blackcurrant and oregano rather than the original nuggets from what I have managed to find and read online.
 
Yuk, that is disgusting!

I feed my boys burgess with blackcurrant and oregano so I will definitely start being more vigiliant especially as they are in my daughters room
 
I had this problem with Supreme's Reggie Rat, it happened quite a few times to me but this was moth larvae but they looked just like maggots!
Each time it happened I would get onto Supreme and they sent me 2 huge bag fulls of Reggie Rat!
They said it was something to do with the wheat that was in the food, they feed off it! All the food was like stuck together when the larvae had been! :)>>>
 
Well I spoke to someone this morning at Burgess (who didn't seem very apologetic at all!), she informed me it was probably from a moth as a couple of you have mentioned. I was asked to email in the best before dates, place of purchase etc so they can look into it.
 
NatalieMT said:
Well I spoke to someone this morning at Burgess (who didn't seem very apologetic at all!), she informed me it was probably from a moth as a couple of you have mentioned. I was asked to email in the best before dates, place of purchase etc so they can look into it.
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Yeah, its a meal moth I think it was called when they explained it to me!
They should send you a replacement bag of food!
 
Well I received a letter in the post today which contained a lot of 'weasel' words, basically they passed the blame of how the food came to be infested on how it was stored after manufacture/during transportation/at the shop and thus said it was 'out of their control'.

Sent me some £2 off vouchers - which will replace the food so no harm done!
 
You would think they would be a bit more apologetic wouldn't you! I haven't heard it happening with any other brands of dried food. Not a very good response in my opinion.
 
Yes I did email them back saying I wasn't impressed with the response and thought given this obviously isn't an isolated incident that is deserved further investigation (given the large number of reports on the internet, I got a lot of hits for Burgess Excel maggots). Because let's face it, the food shouldn't be getting infested with anything!

I have never had this happen in 12 years of keeping guinea pigs and then I switched to Burgess Excel... I'm currently looking into Science Selective as an alternative option.
 
NatalieMT said:
Well I received a letter in the post today which contained a lot of 'weasel' words, basically they passed the blame of how the food came to be infested on how it was stored after manufacture/during transportation/at the shop and thus said it was 'out of their control'.

Sent me some £2 off vouchers - which will replace the food so no harm done!
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Nahh it would have been weasels more like meal moths!
Thats disgusting tho just sending you £2 off voucher you can easy get them off their website, wouldnt you have thought they would have sent a bag of food out for you!
You are better off getting your guinea pigs on Supreme Science cause you will have no problems with them if it happened to there batch's!
 
xRachaelx said:
Nahh it would have been weasels more like meal moths!
Thats disgusting tho just sending you £2 off voucher you can easy get them off their website, wouldnt you have thought they would have sent a bag of food out for you!
You are better off getting your guinea pigs on Supreme Science cause you will have no problems with them if it happened to there batch's!
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By 'weasel' words, I mean words that sound like they're trying to weasel their way out of the situation by passing blame. Not the actual animals!

But yeah it would have been nice for them to send a replacement bag, just so I didn't have to go out again for more food. I'm not even sure the vouchers can be used all together as full payment.
 
I have had the same experience with a bag of the same product (Indian meal moth maggots) and lack of response. malletheadmalletheadmallethead

As we were just getting ready to go on holiday, I was particularly pleased with having to go maggot hunting and cleaning out the whole cubby hole!
 
NatalieMT said:
By 'weasel' words, I mean words that sound like they're trying to weasel their way out of the situation by passing blame. Not the actual animals!

But yeah it would have been nice for them to send a replacement bag, just so I didn't have to go out again for more food. I'm not even sure the vouchers can be used all together as full payment.
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Oh! Sorry my bad lol!

I know, all the people that buy there food they must have lots of money, would you think they could just give you a bag of food!
They are nice enough to send samples, that's what I don't get "/
 
I had a problem a couple of months ago and found the remains of a field mouse in a bag of hay - once burgess received the remains they sent me 5 x £2 vouchers (equivalent to £10). My local pet store basically said they couldn't accept all 5 in one transaction, after a phonecall with Burgess i was told that it's up to each store, but me using 5 for one single transaction was perfectly fine. When i took the vouchers back i told them this and they accepted them reluctantly.... The easiest thing of course would have been 1 single voucher (Burgess did tell me that should i have any probs using all 5 vouchers in a single transaction they would arrange for a cheque to be sent to me)

I presume the vouchers you received are the type where you have to fill in all your details? If so you will have to be firm with the pet store you deal with should they get funny.....

I never understand why Burgess deal in vouchers/cheques when they have pallets of food/hay sitting next to them.....
 
How delightful! I don't think I would have been too amused to find mouse remains either.

The vouchers I got were beige with outlines of animals on them and I think you do have to fill your details in on the back yes. I've used other Burgess vouchers at my local pet store without issue so hopefully they will accept these. I usually buy 3 x fresh forage hay and 2 x 2kg nuggets a week anyway so regardless if they take one per product that will do.

Which brings me on to another point. Burgess seem very preoccupied with sending out all these free sample bags, which aren't small at 750g yet they can't appropriately compensate loyal customers when they have an issue with the product. I spend between £15 and £20 a week on Burgess products as previously mentioned and I'm in two minds whether to continue doing so. I can't seem to find Science Selective anywhere in my area but if I could I'd probably switch. My Mum suggested they might deal in vouchers due to the postage costs associated with sending out free bags of food but that's totally invalid when you think how much it must cost to send out probably 1000s of free bags.
 
Ewwww, Fortunatly I haven't had this happen to me yet
I would be really mad and I would take it back to the shop I bought it from,
 
NatalieMT said:
How delightful! I don't think I would have been too amused to find mouse remains either.

The vouchers I got were beige with outlines of animals on them and I think you do have to fill your details in on the back yes. I've used other Burgess vouchers at my local pet store without issue so hopefully they will accept these. I usually buy 3 x fresh forage hay and 2 x 2kg nuggets a week anyway so regardless if they take one per product that will do.

Which brings me on to another point. Burgess seem very preoccupied with sending out all these free sample bags, which aren't small at 750g yet they can't appropriately compensate loyal customers when they have an issue with the product. I spend between £15 and £20 a week on Burgess products as previously mentioned and I'm in two minds whether to continue doing so. I can't seem to find Science Selective anywhere in my area but if I could I'd probably switch. My Mum suggested they might deal in vouchers due to the postage costs associated with sending out free bags of food but that's totally invalid when you think how much it must cost to send out probably 1000s of free bags.
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At the very least i would have thought Burgess would send out a replacement bag of food and then offer some vouchers along side it as a goodwill gesture - i know when it happened to me i would have much preferred it if they had sent another bag of hay and given me some vouchers to use also - it's all about keeping your customers happy and making you have to use the vouchers in x amount of separate purchases is very underhand imo - it's like you are forced to continue using the products if you want top replace the one you lost....

My only problem is my pigs love the Burgess pellets/hay so i am forced to continue buying it - like you i cannot find a local store that stock science selective - so add on postage to order it online and i'd be spending double the money i do now....
 
piggie-power said:
I had this problem with Wagg mouse food a few weeks ago, i'd opened the new bag of food in the dark popped my hand in, fed the mice. Then in the morning i found maggots all over the room and loads of them in the mouse food! I promptly threw it out and haven't stopped washing my hands since lol
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:)):)):))@ NOT stoped washing your hands

you still washing them lol
 
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