Tshipise at a temporary standstill after expired food debacle

Tempers were flaring at the Forever Resort Tshipise last week when disgruntled guests demanded to be refunded for their stay, accusing the resort of serving them food that had expired. The resort, after admitting that certain food items in the restaurant had expired, fired back and accused some of the guests of trying to extort money from them.

Last Monday (19^th), a group of roughly 50 guests arrived at the Tshipise resort to attend a week-long youth-development workshop organised by the Department of Agriculture. From what Limpopo Mirror was told, some guests apparently started complaining about the quality of the food served to them early on. None of the people we spoke to wanted to be quoted, but they did send us information such as the letter of complaint addressed to the resort manager and pictures of the expired food products.

In the letter, the guests allegedly started questioning the quality of the food served after some had “experienced health problems”. Some of the food products, such as the snacks that were handed out, were then noticed to have expired in October last year. The manager was asked to investigate and explain to them why expired food was served to the guests. A list was also provided of food that the guests believed was not up to standard.

The letter, however, also contains demands that the guests should be reimbursed for their full stay at the resort, as well as for all the food consumed, “because we were purposefully served spoiled food, which ought to have been thrown away”. The letter further instructs management to do this reimbursement on Friday, 23 February. The letter ends with a demand that medical aid insurance must be provided.

On Friday, the shop at the resort was closed, with a notice saying that this was “due to stocktake”. The notice stated that the shop would reopen on Tuesday, 27 February at 13:00.

Forever Resorts responded to questions on Monday, saying that once notified of the incident, the matter had immediately been investigated. “Steps were also taken swiftly by the resort management to have the convenience store on-site closed for business, pending this investigation. At this time, we can confirm that cold drinks (expiry date 14 February 2024) and chocolate bars that were found and brought to our attention, were removed with immediate effect from public consumption. We can further confirm that food which was served at our restaurant to the delegates for their duration of stay was not amongst the affected stock in question,” a spokesperson of Forever Resorts said. The spokesperson did not want his or her name to be stated.

“We take the health and safety of all our guests and employees very seriously, and have initiated and taken the appropriate steps with management both on-site, and at our head office alongside our suppliers, to conduct further extensive investigations into this incident, enforcing internal control and instituting appropriate disciplinary measures to prevent such incidents from occurring again in the future,” the statement reads.

The incident, however, also gained an even uglier flavour with allegations that some of the guests, claiming to represent the group, had tried to extort money from the resort.

“During a meeting with resort management … seven delegates stating that they represent 54 delegates ... admitted to wanting to extort money from Tshipise … and further threatened that should they not each receive money in cash or directly to their personal accounts they would be restricting access to the resort, closing the resort and shutting down operations at the resort, despite our management’s best reasonable efforts at trying to resolve the matter with the relevant third party Institution who made the booking on behalf of these delegates,” said the spokesperson for the resort.

The resort claims that further attempts were made to extort money, which caused operations to come to a standstill. “Discussions with these delegates were later concluded and further discussions for a reasonable and suitable solution were held with the relevant representing delegates as well as from the third-party Institution,” the spokesperson said. What agreement was reached between the resort management and the parties who were complaining is not stated.

A source told Limpopo Mirror that the management offered the guests a free three-day stay at the resort.

News - Date: 01 March 2024

Maanda Bele

Maanda  Bele, born and raised in Nzhelele Siloam, studied journalism at the Tshwane University of Technology.

He is passionate about current news and international affairs.

He worked as part of the Zoutnet team as an intern in 2017.

He is currently a freelance journalist specialising in news from the Vhembe district.

Email: [email protected]