If a piece of food has reached its expiry date, how long do you have to eat it? A day, a week perhaps, or should it be given a one-way ticket to the bin? For one unlucky resident of Zurich, the wait was far longer, as he ate a cordon bleu that was eight months out of date. What's worse is that he had only just bought the meal from Migros.

Eight-month out of date Cordon Bleu recently bought from Swiss shop

According to Blick, the story started when the man from Zurich discovered that his family didn’t have any food for dinner. As it was a Sunday, he had to take public transport to Zurich Main Station to do some shopping at Migros. In his basket were several frozen Cordon Bleus, described by the supermarket as a “chicken delight.”

According to Blick, as soon as the family put them in the oven they started to notice a funny smell, but no one chose to investigate. It was only after the first bite that they discovered something was wrong.

“We were shocked to see that the chicken Cordon Bleus had been expired for more than eight months. Fortunately, I checked the package before eating the rest,” the man explained. He said that he was astounded that such a mistake could occur, especially at such a popular store.

Migros blames human error for bad Cordon Bleu

In response, a spokesperson from Migros told Blick that the incident occurred because of “an error in one of the screening processes." The international company announced that they will launch an investigation into the store to make sure it never happens again.

For the man in question, it seems as though the ordeal wasn’t too bad as he noted, “Migros has already apologised to me and sent me a gift voucher... From now on, I will always look at the expiration date."