Tesco fined £7.5m for selling out-of-date food in city stores

Tesco has been fined £7.56 million after pleading guilty to selling food that was past its use-by date at three of its stores in Birmingham.

The supermarket was sentenced at Birmingham Magistrates' Court on 19 April, following a prosecution brought by Birmingham City Council. As well as the fine, it was ordered to pay £95,500 in costs and a £170 victim surcharge.

Three stores

Tesco Stores Ltd pleaded guilty last September to 22 offences across stores in Bournville, Rubery and the city centre, involving 67 separate items.

The council's environmental health officers first visited Tesco Express on Linden Road in Bournville in June 2015, after a complaint from a member of the public, and found six items on display past their use-by date. When they returned in April 2016, they found more, including own-brand pizza, dough balls, soup, pork belly slices, potato salad, trifle and flavoured milk, between one and 17 days out of date.

In June 2017, after another complaint, officers visited the Tesco Metro on Bristol Road South in Rubery and found 25 items on sale past their use-by date, including scotch eggs, quiche and children's ready meals.

The next day, at Tesco Express on Carrs Lane in the city centre, officers found out-of-date wraps and fruit pots on display, and grapes with visible mould.

"A major concern"

Mark Croxford, head of environmental health at the council, said supermarkets had a duty to make sure the food they sell is safe.

"The purpose of the use-by date is to protect the health of the consumer. The manufacturers put the date on their products to guarantee the food is safe and ignoring this date completely undermines consumer safety," he said.

"There were numerous missed opportunities to check the dates on these products and remove them from display - and the fact incidents were found on several occasions, in different stores and over 14 months, is a major concern."

"This case offers a warning to all retailers to ensure their stock is in date and that if found to be breaching these regulations we will take action - as we have successfully done against one of the UK's biggest supermarket chains."

Use-by and best before

The case turns on the difference between two familiar labels. A best before date is about quality: food can still be safe to eat after it, although it may not be at its best. A use-by date is about safety, and is used on foods that go off quickly, such as meat, fish, dairy products and ready meals. It is against the law to sell food after its use-by date.

The prosecution was brought under the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013. Fines for food safety offences are linked to the size of the business, which is why the penalty for one of the country's largest retailers runs into millions of pounds.

Shoppers who find food on sale past its use-by date are encouraged to report it to the council's environmental health team, as the customers in this case did.