Five grocers sell expired food items

Five major local grocers were found to be selling food that had passed beyond its expiration date, the non-profit Consumers' Foundation (消基會) said yesterday.

"Between Nov. 12 and 27, our volunteers discretely checked 13 hypermarkets and supermarkets in the greater Taipei area and found six products that were expired in five retail stores," said Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏), secretary general of the foundation.

Most of the items were dairy products, according to the foundation, including butter, cheese and powdered milk. Other items found to be past their expiration dates were frozen lasagna and dried shredded mushrooms.

Most of the food items were expired less than 20 days, while goat milk power in Wellcome Supermarket had reportedly been on the shelf 183 days past the manufacturers recommended expiration date.

"Both retailers and importers should be held responsible for the oversight," Cheng said.

He urged authorities to quickly punish these companies and keep a close eye on all grocers.

According to industry regulations, companies selling expired food can receive a fine of up to NT$150,000, Cheng said.

Store officials claimed that they were unaware of the problem.

"We are shocked ... Cosco checks stock everyday and therefore this is not supposed to happen," said Ahmen Lee (李伯孟), public relations manager at member-only Cosco Taiwan. "Cosco's reputation is built on consumer trust, so we can't run the risk of ruining our image."

Lee said that the company will remedy the problem.

Officials from Wellcome also said they will investigate.

"We are trying to figure out what happened in the quality-control process ... if any human factor was involved, we will punish those responsible," said Tsai Yu-jen (蔡裕人), chief operations officer at Wellcome.

Tsai said the company often checks its stock. With two expired items, Carrefour said it will immediately work to improve its quality control.

"The company rechecked all products on Carrefour shelves all around the nation and found nothing expired," said Lilian Lee (李莉莉), marketing manager at Carrefour Taiwan.

She said the company monitors inventory closely and will never let this happen again.

Geant said that they removed all of the expired products that they found.

"Last Monday our staff noticed some of our packages of shredded mushrooms were expired and the company took them off shelves immediately," said Brenda Yen (嚴必文), public relations manager at Geant.

Kaomart urged the Consumers' Foundation to identify the location where the expired food was found.

"In order to protect consumers, the foundation should let us know as soon as possible so we can eliminate the expired products right away," said Hsieh Wu-hsiung (謝武雄), a manager at Kaomart.