The drink, purchased from the Caffè Nero branch in Gentleman’s Walk, Norwich, on July 24 was an Innocent brand smoothie marketed for children.
Jasmine Snow, the boy’s mother, only realised the smoothie ran out of date more than three weeks before on July 1 after her son started drinking it.
The Innocent smoothie more than three weeks past its use-by date (Image: Jasmine Snow)
Staff removed all the smoothies from the fridge and she was issued a refund.
Caffè Nero has since apologised and offered a voucher to use in store.
“I think it’s a bit of a joke to be honest,” Ms Snow said.
“He had a really upset stomach and diarrhoea,” she explained. “We had to see the out-of-hours GP who was concerned about how dehydrated he was.
“Luckily my son is back to himself now, but I lost a couple of night shifts as I had to be at home looking after him.”
She described the response from Caffè Nero’s head office as “missing the point” after being offered the £50 e-voucher.
A five-year-old boy was sick after drinking an out-of-date smoothie from Caffè Nero in Gentleman’s Walk (Image: Newsquest)
“Offering a gift card to encourage a customer to return to a store that failed on basic child safety feels insensitive and completely misses the point,” Ms Snow added.
“This isn’t a minor customer service inconvenience, it is a health and safety issue that requires accountability and immediate process improvements.
“A drink designed specifically for kids being left on a shelf for more than three weeks points to a severe failure in basic stock rotation.”
A spokesman for Caffè Nero said “Food hygiene and customer safety is of paramount importance to us and we have very specific and detailed procedures to manage all the products we sell.
“While this is an isolated incident concerning a single product, the store team fell below our very clear standards and has been fully retrained on all our food processes.
“We are very sorry for any distress this situation may have caused.”