Out-of-date food at York stores

11:01am Tuesday 3rd June 2008

Two supermarkets in York have been warned after environmental health officials found more than 30 items of out-of-date food on their shelves, councillors will be told at a meeting this week.

Netto Foodstores Limited's supermarkets in Layerthorpe and at Clifton Moor were each given a caution after City of York Council's environmental health team found a total of 31 goods at the two stores that were after their use-by dates.

Information given to The Press by the authority showed that one of the items, a Milkfrisch yogurt, found by council officials at the company's Layerthorpe store, was 15 days past its use-by date.

The council said that one of the products, Roach Foods Middle Bacon, discovered at the firm's branch in Clifton Moor, was 11 days out of date.

The authority said one of the goods, Little Rachel's Organic Thick Fruit Yogurt found at the company's Clifton Moor store, was nine days after its use-by date, and that another product, Grabits Ten Snacksize Mexican Chicken On A Stick, spotted at the firm's Layerthorpe shop, was four days past its use-by date.

All the items were found during the authority's inspection of the stores, which were carried out following complaints from members of the public.

On January 24 this year, the council issued Netto Foodstores Limited with two cautions under the Food Safety Act 1990 for possessing for sale items after their use-by dates.

None of the products discovered during the inspections was sold.

The cautions are shown in a City of York Council agenda that will be considered at a meeting of the authority's executive member for neighbourhood services and advisory panel on Thursday.

A spokesman for Netto Foodstores Limited said: "Netto Foodstores were extremely disappointed to find that out of code' products were on display during inspections of two of our York stores in 2007.

"We have extensive due diligence' procedures in place to prevent such incidents. However, in this case, those procedures were not adhered to and the store colleagues involved have since received extensive training to prevent any future reoccurrence.

"We also sought additional guidance and advice from the officers of York City Council and have since updated our date code checking procedures as a result. As the country's fastest-growing supermarket we are committed to only selling products of the very highest quality to our customers and we are confident that an incident of this nature will not happen again."

A spokeswoman for City of York Council said: "We are working with Netto to secure long term improvements at the York stores, so as to avoid similar problems in the future."