A disturbing discovery inside the home of a man who was preparing ready meals for sale in local shops has renewed concerns about the safety of quick lunches from unfamiliar brands commonly found in corner shops. Watford Borough Council secured a conviction against Stephen Akuoko, 62, earlier this month, following a two-year investigation that began when cooked and smoked fish products sold under the brand Tribal Foods were traced back to his residence.
Unhygienic Conditions Exposed
Stomach-turning photographs taken inside Akuoko's home reveal dead fish piled up in the bathtub of his cluttered bathroom and the squalid conditions of the kitchen where he prepared the ready meals. An investigation was launched by Trading Standards, and Akuoko told environmental health officials he would cease selling Tribal Foods products. However, just weeks later, his unlabelled products were found in a local shop, with CCTV footage showing he had made three deliveries to the store.
Akuoko later pleaded guilty to two food safety offences. The judge condemned the meals as 'unfit for human consumption' and handed him a two-year suspended prison sentence along with a five-year ban from operating any food business. This story is likely to make anyone think twice before grabbing a ready meal or sandwich from a corner shop, even when in a hurry.
Online Reviews Highlight Ongoing Issues
Online reviews of some ready meals and sandwiches sold in corner shops across the country have branded them 'not fit for human consumption'. Disgruntled diners claim they have found flies, hair, plastic, metal, and mould in their ready meals, with some alleging they contracted food poisoning. The Daily Mail investigated lunch options sold in vague packaging from mysterious suppliers in off-licences on London's high streets to track down who is making them and where.
HSA Foods Ltd
Inside a Premier on Leytonstone High Street in east London, we picked up an unappetising cheese and red onion pitta for £3. It was one of many options from HSA Foods Ltd, a manufacturer and supplier of pre-prepared meals, including tuna and sweetcorn rolls and chicken Caesar sandwiches. The pungent odour of the gloopy filling provoked gagging among reporters, with no one brave enough to try the densely packed pitta. At Express Food Centre further down the road, we purchased an HSA Foods chicken biryani meal in a plastic takeaway tub. Its £3.75 price point seems like a bargain, but inside we found just four measly chunks of chicken and the stem of a chilli that had been left in.
Data journalist Cameron Roy volunteered to try the biryani and said: 'This is definitely edible, but only in emergencies. There were only four chunks of chicken and no vegetables, meaning the £3.75 price tag was mostly for an entire box of basmati rice. In the future, I would stick with a meal deal.' HSA Foods seems to dominate the market for 'to go' food, as we found their products in almost all shops we visited. Established in 2010, HSA Foods produces a range of lunch items and distributes them to stores across the UK from their factory on Drury Lane Industrial Estate in Wembley, west London. During a visit to the factory, the Daily Mail found the grounds outside were cluttered and not particularly clean. Liaqat Mehmood is listed as Director, and Hadia Mehmood as factory manager on LinkedIn. Until 2024, HSA was exempt from inspections for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) Hygiene Rating Scheme because they did not supply directly to final customers. However, they have since received three five-star ratings in March and May 2024 and another in December 2025. They have no website and no social media presence. The Daily Mail made several attempts to contact HSA Foods for comment, but the company did not respond.
Summit Foods Ltd
The £1.99 neon orange chicken tikka Snacksters sandwich with purple packaging inside Corner Food & Wine in Leytonstone was so eye-catching we had to buy it. Trying to pry the two slices of bread apart proved difficult, with the nuclear-looking paste acting as a stinky glue, driving colleagues back to their desks in disgust. Snacksters is a brand under Summit Foods Ltd, which also makes many McDonald's 'dupes' found in Iceland and Morrisons, including knock-off McNuggets and copycat Big Macs. They are based on an industrial estate in St Georges Park in Kirkham, Preston, where they also process and ship meat from their other company Kepak Ltd. There are no FSA Food Hygiene ratings available for Summit Foods, likely because it does not supply directly to the final consumer and is therefore exempt from inspections.
Summit Foods has an overall Google rating of 1.5 stars, with some claiming their sandwich tasted 'stale' or 'sour'. Another said they had to throw away their egg mayo sandwich because it tasted 'very sour and bitter' despite being in date. Someone who picked up a chicken, bacon, and mayonnaise sandwich claimed it was '70 per cent bread and the filling resembled dog food' with a 'really weird taste'. Many one-star reviews bemoaned the lack of filling inside Snacksters sandwiches, with mushy contents strategically placed to make them appear full. One wrote: 'Worst sandwich ever, absolutely no filling and nothing resembling chicken or bacon, more like what was dropped on the floor. Disgusting, will never buy any of their products.' Despite the poor feedback, there are some good reviews, with one saying they make 'the best tuna butty you will ever find in a shop' and another praising the egg mayo sandwich as 'good as anything I've ever eaten in a high-end restaurant'. A spokesperson for Summit Foods told the Daily Mail: 'Our Snacksters range plays an important role for shoppers looking for a great value, convenient sandwich on the go. We work hard to ensure that every sandwich is of the best possible quality and are sorry to hear this may not have been the case in a few isolated cases. We're always listening to feedback and continuing to improve the quality of our range whilst working to keep prices affordable. Our site holds the highest level of BRCGS certification for Food Safety.'
House of Westphalia Ltd
Another item we found in Corner Food & Wine was a microwaveable chicken burger in a plastic tub with little information on the front packaging other than 'Son of a Bun' and a cowboy burger mascot. In tiny writing under the month-long use-by date on the back of the £1 burger, we found the address for the importing company: House of Westphalia Ltd. Based in an industrial park in Bushmead, Luton, Bedfordshire, House of Westphalia supplies Son of a Bun chicken burgers and cheeseburgers, as well as pre-packaged chicken bites from their 'Snack Stars' range. Upon opening the packaging, we found an insipid puck of processed chicken with an unpleasant smell between buns that were soggy in some areas and dry in others. With no FSA hygiene rating available, we assume they are exempt from inspections, likely because their products are imported from factories abroad. House of Westphalia did not respond to a request for comment.
FreshBite
In a fridge at City View Off Licence on Bethnal Green Road in east London, we found a rival to HSA Foods' chicken biryani by a brand called FreshBite for £3.49. Despite costing 26p less, it looked and smelled more appealing, with plenty of chicken and more seasoning. Cameron also took this biryani home for a review, which saw it win over HSA Foods'. He said: 'If you like your biryani spicy, this would be a pretty good option. It left a very warm tingling in my mouth, meaning a drink or something cooling was required. The chicken was shredded instead of chunks, which I preferred, as it meant you got a little bit in almost every bite. In the middle of the tub, the rice had clumped into a massive, brain-like rice ball. I didn't eat that bit. Didn't taste overly processed and was overall at the standard I would expect from a supermarket microwave meal.' The address on the packaging linked to a Companies House page for FreshBite that said the company had been dissolved. But another active Companies House page for the firm, incorporated in 2013, places FreshBite at Fourways House on Rigby Lane in Hayes, west London. FreshBite's website shows other offerings such as curries, 'deep fill' sandwiches, noodle dishes, salads, pittas, and paninis. As well as supplying food items to more than 1,000 independent retail stores, they are also stocked in universities, colleges, and even hospitals. They do not have an FSA hygiene rating, so an overall Google rating of 2.9 offers views on the company's products. 'Tasteless, horrible, nasty sandwiches,' one reviewer claimed. 'The cheap nasty cardboard packaging was probably nicer than the actual product. One of the very worst I have ever eaten.' FreshBite did not respond to a request for comment.
Quality Foods
In Express Food Centre in Leytonstone, we bought a vegetable samosa for £1.29. The popular snack came in a plastic bag with the company name Quality Foods in the top left-hand corner. Freeing it from its packaging and cutting it in half revealed some putrid-smelling filling with a slightly off-colour. Tracking down the samosa supplier was tricky due to many food-related businesses operating under the name Quality Foods. A company called Faley Partners Ltd, which provides 'retail sale via mail order houses or via internet', has a matching address at Witley Gardens in Southall, west London. Faley Partners is due for voluntary strike off as of February. It is unclear whether the two companies are related. As of March 2025, Quality Foods has an FSA rating of 4, but online archives claim it received a rating of 1 in December 2012 (needing 'major improvement') and a rating of 3 in 2017 (generally satisfactory). There are only eight reviews on Google, with a score of 4.5, including one describing the place as a 'hidden gem' with 'fantastic' samosas and spring rolls. In a one-star review, a customer posted a picture of their Quality Foods lamb samosa and wrote: 'There is more chemical than food! What's wrong with you people! Is this how samosa look like?! I'm sick!' The general manager of Quality Foods, Param, told the Daily Mail: 'We've been here for a long time and the recipe we use is the same one we've used for the last 15 years. We always use accredited suppliers, and we manufacture around 30,000 samosas a day - which is only possible due to the longstanding customer satisfaction with our products.'
Verdict
While it is unlikely that manufacturers of corner shop ready meals are storing meat in bathtubs, the conditions in which they are made remain elusive and largely unregulated. Pre-packaged food suppliers, or Food Business Operators (FBOs), in the UK are regulated primarily by the Food Information Regulations 2014 and the Food Safety Act 1990, enforced by local authorities and the FSA. FBOs have mandatory requirements, including accurate, indelible labelling with product name, ingredient list, 14 major allergens, net quantity, durability dates, and UK manufacturer or importer address. However, local authorities and the FSA only tend to investigate FBOs if someone reports a concern, and FBOs that do not sell directly to consumers are generally not legally required to undergo hygiene inspections. This means concerns over cleanliness or practice inside factories may never come to light, leaving consumers in the dark about what they are eating and how hairs or other contaminants might end up in their corner shop biryani or sandwich.
