Shoppers say their Christmas turkeys are rotten or rancid as they hit out at Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Lidl for ‘ruining’ the large day

Furious Brits have hit out at supermarkets after claiming they bought ‘rotten’ turkeys for their now ruined Christmas dinner. 

Customers have shared images of the ‘rancid’ birds on social media which they say they came from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl.

To make things worse, many said they only realised the main component of their Christmas dinner had gone off this morning – too late to find a replacement. 

One man posted a picture of his turkey that had a useby date of December 27 with the caption: ‘@Sainsburys thanks for ruining Christmas. Bought this turkey crown YESTERDAY from your Sury Basin store in Kingston Upon Thames. 

‘Straight home to our fridge. Opening tonight to prep for tomorrow and it has gone off. Did not smell good. Please tell me how you fix this for us.’ 

Another shopper shared an image of her turkey that appeared to have gone black at the end. The label shows it cost £14.36 and was supposed to serve seven people.

She captioned it: ‘Well done Sainsbury’s Christmas is officially ruined! 

‘I’ve just got the turkey out of the fridge and it’s rotten! It smells so bad I can’t believe you could sell this? #christmasruined’ 

A third social media user wrote that he would now be having pizza for Christmas dinner as his £13 Turkey from Tesco is ‘off’. 

He said: ‘Turkey is off!! I guess it’s pizza. Hoping for a no quibble, full refund Boxing Day.’ 

Another person was left baffled by how they would cook the main component of their Christmas dinner as their Turkey came with no weight or cooking time. 

They posted on X: ‘Looks like I’m guessing the cooking time of my turkey today as their packs do not have exact weight or cooking time printed on front as normal. 

‘Back of pack says refer to front for cooking times..trying to weigh a turkey on small kitchen scales is fun! Merry Christmas!’ 

Aldi and Lidl have also come under fire with shoppers claiming their turkeys did not come up to scratch. 

One person said according to the Daily Star: ‘Just a heads up as I’d hate for anyone open theirs up Christmas morning and there be no shops open selling turkeys. 

I’ve just gone to wash and marinate my turkey ready for Wednesday and it was fully RANCID inside! Smells awful and the meat had turned green!

‘Bought fresh from Lidl Woodhouse Lane on Friday, dated 26th Dec and been stored at the back of my fridge since bought so there’s absolutely no reason for it to be off.’ 

Another posted on X about a £40 turkey: ‘Gutted to have spent over £40 on a fresh turkey only to get it out today and it have gone off. 

‘Christmas is cancelled #aldi #christmasisruined.’ 

MailOnline has contacted Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi and Lidl from comment.  

Shoppers have also raised concerns about ‘missing’ orders from supermarket Iceland on Christmas Eve and December 23. 

One person posted on X: ‘Please don’t trust Iceland for your Christmas shopping & delivery. 

‘We secured our delivery and did our order on 20th for Christmas Eve. 

‘Just delivered with everything BUT THE TURKEY! Out of stock! Lost customers. Merry Christmas!’

A second person wrote: ‘I have received a text to say our delivery was attempted but they couldn’t access the property.

‘ My wife has been in all afternoon and there has been no attempt to deliver at all, no phone numbers are being answered so I’m not sure what to do to.’

MailOnline had contacteed Iceland for comment.  

It comes as customers have also ridiculed supermarkets this year for their item substitions. 

One woman posted on X that the red cabbage she had ordered from Sainsbury’s was replaced by cauliflower cheese. 

She wrote: ‘And the award for most ridiculous Christmas substitution goes to @sainsbury’s. Whyyyyy?! The only similarity is that it is a vegetable in a pot?!’ 

Ocado has also come under fire come under fire after the retailer suffered a delivery malfunction. 

Long-booked Christmas shops were delivered to Londoners over the weekend without any chilled or frozen foods, with some claiming dozens of items were missing.

One person wrote on X: ‘@Ocado my Christmas order is a joke – 1/3 of order out of stock despite having been booked months ago.

‘Vegan items substituted for non vegan. I’m having to go shopping tomorrow for vegan dishes. Not what I paid £10 delivery for.’

Another said: ‘Have just received our Christmas order with no less than a dozen substitution which included spicy party foods which we don’t like or tolerate.

‘Although we have a smart pass, we paid £10 for the slot/privilege of not receiving half of what was ordered. Terrible service!’

A third wrote: ‘@Ocado another disappointing Christmas shop. No crisp/ nuts at all! Lots of rubbish subs too. Thankfully I placed my meat order direct with another shop. I can see I’m not the only one disappointed.’

A fourth added: ‘Substituting prawn toast for smoked salmon is an interesting one @Ocado.’

A fifth commented: ‘@Ocado what is wrong with your system that I can put an order in six weeks ago and your system doesn’t allocate the product ordered to me? Substitutions today are no good to me – and how can you have NO satsumas? It’s Christmas ffs. #angry.’

Another also said: ‘The fact that @Ocado don’t price match substitutions is atrocious. the substitutes i’m getting today are about £40 more expensive in total than what i ordered but that’s not my fault so why am i paying extra??? what a joke.’

The robot malfunction took place at Ocado’s hi-tech 563,000sq ft Erith centre, which is the world’s largest automated warehouse for food deliveries, dealing with 200,000 orders a week.

‘We are aware that a small proportion of orders were not delivered as expected. This does not meet our usual high standards and we understand the inconvenience this will have caused, especially at this time of year. We are proactively reaching out to apologise to those affected,’ a spokeswoman added.