Tesco Fined £7.56m for Selling Out-of-Date Food

Would love to know how long past the expiry dates the items had been

They want to concentrate more on our takeaways around are town centres

That seems like an overly excessive fine. It's probably not much fun for staff in those particular stores at the moment. Although Tesco recently won first place in the best sausage category of Good Housekeeping's Summer BBQ Taste Test for their Fire Pit Chorizo Sausages, so things always balance out in the end

I take it these items weren't in the reduced section, where this could have been expected and probably massively reduced?

I suspect this was staff error rather than a deliberate act by Tesco themselves. Like all store they are reliant on staff following correct procedures.

I'm really surprised and this seems a massive fine ...Tesco is my main store and I have don't think I have ever, in maybe 35 years, seen out dated items .... tho I have seen a fair few elsewhere. I agree with ACR and Pppathome re probs staff error and definitely, look into take aways!

I've had a few instances at the cooperative store near to me where I've gone to pay for reduced items and they have refused sale because they were past their use by date and I think once or twice I have actually bought items that were past their use by date (next day) but still used them. I've never had this situation with any other store and I think convenience stores probably have this more often than normal supermarkets because of less footfall. However I've had fruit and veg from Lidl in the past where I don't think there was even a use by date on the packaging and when I've got it home it was part rotten and I've had that on quite a few occasions in the past. I haven't used Lidl for quite a while now so may have changed.

If that hasn't changed it seems Lidl would be immune from prosecution purely by not providing a 'use by date' on their packaging for some items I guess because fruit and veg is exempt because you can also buy it loose. Some of the fruit and veg was in an appalling state though and looked like much older fruit and veg was mixed in with more recent.

I guess it depends on the food but you see videos on youtube where people cook very expired food grabbed from bins of supermarkets and they have no issues and it can be days past the use by date.

I’ve seen things that were out of date in Sainsbury’s. If there are staff available I tell them and they immediately remove them. They won’t sell out of date produce at reduced prices (unfortunately).

Ouch!

This is really common in supermarkets near me. I find out of date items all the time. Staff don’t seem to care and refuse to give a refund if you’ve bought something out of date (such as the biscuits I bought last Christmas without checking the date and found they were dated January 2018! When I opened them they were a crumbly soggy mess, but they claimed I must be returning something I found at the back of my cupboard. I wasn’t, and they were still selling the same biscuits dated that far back!)

I've seen meat in Lidl that has gone a funny colour, obviously past their use by date, and also fresh chicken in trays on the floor, with no staff around. A serious health hazard to both.

I remember Christmas food shopping at tesco about 3 years ago and picked up a box of shortbread. It was about 2 weeks before Christmas and I assumed they would be well in date but found they were already past the BBE. They had obviously been put away from the Christmas before as they were in Christmas packaging.

I found a whole box of the vacuum packed peshwari breads in Sainsbury that had sell by dates in the past- the assistant was quick to remove them though.

Yes unfortunately, seen it twice in Tesco these last months.

I received a pork joint yesterday (14 July) in my online shop with a use by date of the 12th. I’ve already complained and received a refund for the item. I’ve had to complain a lot about my food shops from Tesco’s lately!

The fine is ridiculous! This encourages Tesco to throw away more good food and contribute to the food waste problem we have in this country!

If Tesco even thought about donating to food banks this will put them right off!

Too right, there are people going hungry they should offer it to local food banks and have them pass it on to people that need it (within date of course)

I see it occasionally in Waitrose but when I do I hand it to a member of staff. I think sometimes the product gets pushed to the back.

I have seen it often in the likes of poundstretcher and other similar kind of stores, and they really don’t care. In my local Tesco, it was a common occurrence for a number of years, and the rumour was the staff were doing it on purpose to get their managers in trouble…oh well

They should be charged for doing this because they could sell it cheap or give to food banks but it also depends how far out of date it is & why did they wait for it to be so out of date to be doing this there so much food waste going on